Master’s Thesis
Submitted to:
Reykjavik University
School of Business
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
SURVIVORS OF LAYOFFS
Attitudes and behaviors of employees
Sigurbjörg Stella Gunnarsdóttir
29/01/1978
Supervisor
Katrín Ólafsdóttir, lektor at Reykjavik University
Reykjavik, 2.1.2013
Abstract
Previous research have shown that survivors of layoffs are affected by so-called survivor
syndrome, meaning negative feelings in the form of job insecurity, decreased morale, guilt,
less job satisfaction and even envy towards the laid off employees. The objective of this
thesis is to explore how survivors of layoffs in Icelandic companies have experienced these
feelings mentioned above in the wake of the economic crisis in 2008. Many companies
have had to resort to group layoffs in the past four years and this research focuses on the
time that has elapsed since then.
Participants were gathered together with the use of the social network page Facebook and
people were asked to participate independent of their current employment status.
Participants were divided into three groups dependent on their previous experience with
layoffs, namely survivors, victims and those having no experience with layoffs.
Comparison was then done between these groups to get better feeling for the survivors’
perspectives on the research topic.
The results do not indicate that survivors of Icelandic companies are experiencing any of
the researched factors of the survivor syndrome. The research did on the contrary reveal
that the victims are experiencing more negative feelings after layoffs than the survivors.
There were also some differences found between men and women in relation to how they
see their position in the labor market. Furthermore, do the findings in this research
contribute to the already researched topics of similar fields in Iceland.
Keywords: survivors, downsizing, layoffs, survivor syndrome
ii
Declaration of Research Work and Integrity
This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being
concurrently submitted in candidature of any degree. This thesis is the result of my own
investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by giving
explicit references. A bibliography is appended.
By signing the present document I confirm and agree that I have read RU’s ethics code of
conduct and fully understand the consequences of violating these rules in regards of my
thesis.
...................................................................................................................................................
Date and place
Kennitala
Signature
iii
Preface
This thesis is the result of my master’s degree in International Business at Reykjavik
University and it is worth 30 ECTS.
The economic crisis, group layoffs and personal experience were the main motivation for
choosing this topic. A lot has changed in the Icelandic labor market since 2008 and the
impact on those who survive layoffs has not been greatly dealt with in Iceland. Preparation
on this thesis started in June 2012 and finished in December 2012. The process of writing
this thesis has been challenging and there are many people who helped along in this process
that I would like to express my gratitude towards.
First, I would like to thank my supervisor Katrín Ólafsdóttir, lector at Reykjavik University
who has given me great supervision and advice in this process. Her feedback, guidance and
knowledge in the subject were very valuable throughout the whole process of this research.
Arney Einarsdóttir, lector at Reykjavik University has also been a great help throughout the
process of this research and I would like to express my thanks to her for providing me with
excellent assistance. Also, I would like to thank my sister Anna Steinunn Gunnarsdóttir and
Ásdís Arnalds, at the Social Science Research Institute, for helping me with the statistical
process of the thesis and for assisting with SPSS.
Secondly, I would to thank all the participants in the study for giving me a few minutes of
their time to assist on this research.
Finally, I am extremely thankful to my family, especially my son, and my friends who have
given me outstanding support and understanding throughout my studies.
January 02, 2013.
Sigurbjörg Stella Gunnarsdóttir
iv
Table of Contents
1
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1
Background ......................................................................................................................... 1
1.2
Subject motivation .............................................................................................................. 2
1.3
Research problem ................................................................................................................ 3
1.4
Structure of the research...................................................................................................... 5
2
Literature review ............................................................................................................... 6
2.1
History ................................................................................................................................. 6
2.2
Definitions ........................................................................................................................... 6
2.3
Downsizing causes .............................................................................................................. 7
2.4
Downsizing consequences .................................................................................................. 8
2.4.1
Financial consequences ............................................................................................... 9
2.4.2
Organizational consequences ...................................................................................... 9
2.4.3
Human consequences .................................................................................................. 9
2.4.4
Victims ...................................................................................................................... 10
2.5
Survivors ........................................................................................................................... 11
2.5.1
2.5.1.1
Survivor syndrome .................................................................................................... 11
Job insecurity ........................................................................................................ 12
2.5.2
Survivor guilt ............................................................................................................ 13
2.5.3
Survivor envy ............................................................................................................ 15
2.6
Executioner ....................................................................................................................... 15
2.7
Psychological contract ...................................................................................................... 16
2.7.1
2.8
International research ........................................................................................................ 18
2.8.1
Canada ....................................................................................................................... 18
2.8.2
United Kingdom ........................................................................................................ 20
2.8.3
Australia .................................................................................................................... 20
2.8.4
South-Africa .............................................................................................................. 21
2.9
3
Changes in the work environment ............................................................................. 17
Recent experiences in Iceland ........................................................................................... 22
2.9.1
Unemployment .......................................................................................................... 22
2.9.2
Labor force participation ........................................................................................... 24
2.9.3
Group layoffs ............................................................................................................ 24
2.9.4
Research in Iceland ................................................................................................... 26
Frame of Reference ......................................................................................................... 30
v
3.1
Conceptual Framework ..................................................................................................... 30
3.1.1
Sickness 1 .................................................................................................................. 30
3.1.2
Sickness 2 .................................................................................................................. 31
3.1.3
Sickness 3 .................................................................................................................. 32
4
Methodology .................................................................................................................... 34
4.1
Research design and approach .......................................................................................... 34
4.2
Research strategy .............................................................................................................. 35
4.3
Data collection .................................................................................................................. 35
4.4
Questionnaire Design ........................................................................................................ 35
4.5
Quality criteria .................................................................................................................. 44
5
Data presentation ............................................................................................................ 45
5.1
Response rate .................................................................................................................... 45
5.2
Demographic structure of respondents.............................................................................. 45
5.3
Layoff contact experience ................................................................................................. 48
6
Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 52
6.1
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 52
6.1.1
Visual presentation .................................................................................................... 52
6.2
Sickness 1 .......................................................................................................................... 52
6.3
Sickness 2 .......................................................................................................................... 74
6.4
Sickness 3 .......................................................................................................................... 82
7
Discussion & Implications .............................................................................................. 90
7.1
Findings ............................................................................................................................. 90
7.2
Sickness 1 .......................................................................................................................... 90
7.2.1
Sense of perceived job insecurity .............................................................................. 90
7.2.2
Sense of survivor syndrome ...................................................................................... 93
7.2.3
Job satisfaction and commitment .............................................................................. 94
7.3
Sickness 2 .......................................................................................................................... 96
7.3.1
Survivors’ guilt.......................................................................................................... 97
7.3.2
Fairness of layoffs ..................................................................................................... 98
7.4
7.4.1
Sickness 3 .......................................................................................................................... 99
Envy towards layoff victims ..................................................................................... 99
7.5
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 100
7.6
Implications ..................................................................................................................... 101
7.7
Limitations and future research ....................................................................................... 101
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Research structure................................................................................................................ 5
Figure 2: Adjusted unemployment in Iceland 1980-2011 ................................................................. 23
Figure 3: Survivor sickness categories .............................................................................................. 30
Figure 4: Survivor sickness 1, states and influences ......................................................................... 30
Figure 5: Survivor sickness 1, symptoms ......................................................................................... 31
Figure 6: Survivor sickness 1, framework ........................................................................................ 31
Figure 7: Survivor sickness 2, guilt................................................................................................... 32
Figure 8: Survivor sickness 3, envy .................................................................................................. 32
Figure 9: Survivor sickness, holistic framework ............................................................................... 33
Figure 10: In which sector operates the company that you work for? .............................................. 47
Figure 11: Distribution of participants .............................................................................................. 48
Figure 12: Distribution of participants between genders .................................................................. 49
Figure 13: If you have been laid off, in what kind of industry did you work at that time?............... 50
Figure 14: Percentage of layoffs within a company .......................................................................... 51
Figure 15: Number of layoffs of co-workers .................................................................................... 51
Figure 16: Have you received a warn notice that you might get laid off? ........................................ 51
Figure 17: Confidence that the company will need me as an employee ........................................... 61
Figure 18: Perceived likelihood that more layoffs will occur in the organization ............................ 61
Figure 19: Perceived assistance from management if layoffs will occur in your workplace ............ 62
Figure 20: Lack of trust towards my supervisors .............................................................................. 65
Figure 21: Lack of trust towards the company.................................................................................. 66
Figure 22: I believe that the morale at my workplace is worse today than it was 4 years ago ......... 66
Figure 23: I would turn down another job with more pay in order to stay with this company ......... 70
Figure 24: I have wanted to change jobs in the past few years ......................................................... 72
Figure 25: I have experienced guilt within me because my coworker was laid off but I was not .... 75
Figure 26: Anger towards the organization that did lay off people that worked closely with me .... 76
Figure 27: Selection of those who were laid off was fair.................................................................. 77
Figure 28: Selection of those who were laid off was fair.................................................................. 78
Figure 29: The victims were well treated by the company during layoffs ........................................ 79
Figure 30: The victims were well treated by the company during layoffs ........................................ 80
Figure 31: The reasons for the layoffs were clearly explained to me and other employees ............. 80
Figure 32: The reasons for the layoffs were clearly explained to me and other employees ............. 81
Figure 33: Increased workload due to layoffs of coworkers ............................................................. 83
Figure 34: Increased workload due to layoffs of coworkers ............................................................. 83
Figure 35: I would have preferred being laid off instead of staying with the downsized company.. 84
Figure 36: I have considered those who were laid off lucky to be gone ........................................... 85
Figure 37: I never seem to have enough time to get everything done............................................... 89
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List of Tables
Table 1: Unemployment among men and women (2008-2011)........................................................ 23
Table 2: Labor force participation rate in Iceland (age 15-64). ........................................................ 24
Table 3: Total number of individuals laid off in group-layoffs (2008-2011). .................................. 25
Table 4: Total reported layoffs by sectors (2008-2011). ................................................................... 26
Table 5: Design of Final Questionnaire ............................................................................................ 42
Table 6: Response rate ...................................................................................................................... 45
Table 7: Demographic profile of respondents ................................................................................... 46
Table 8: Organizational position analyzed between genders ............................................................ 47
Table 9: Demographic profile of respondents divided by groups ..................................................... 49
Table 10: Job insecurity, statistical analyzes of questions 16 - 21 .................................................... 53
Table 11: Expected career opportunities/promotion within the next 12 months .............................. 54
Table 12: I expect that my skills will be useful to the company in the next 12 months ................... 54
Table 13: I expect that my skills will be useful to the company in the next 12 months ................... 54
Table 14: I am confident that the company will need me as an employee in the next 12 months .... 55
Table 15: I am confident that the company will need me as an employee in the next 12 months .... 56
Table 16: Possible layoffs in the company in the next 12 months .................................................... 56
Table 17: Possible layoffs in the company in the next 12 months .................................................... 57
Table 18: Possible personal layoffs in the next 12 months ............................................................... 57
Table 19: Possible personal layoffs in the next 12 months ............................................................... 58
Table 20: Perceived assistance from management if layoffs occur .................................................. 58
Table 21: Perceived assistance from management if layoffs occur .................................................. 59
Table 22: Expected career opportunities/promotion within the next 12 months .............................. 60
Table 23: Job insecurity, analyzed between the three groups. .......................................................... 60
Table 24: Possible layoffs in the company in the next 12 months .................................................... 63
Table 25: Survivor syndrome, statistical analyzes of questions 22-24 ............................................. 64
Table 26: Lack of trust towards my supervisors ............................................................................... 64
Table 27: Lack of trust towards the company ................................................................................... 65
Table 28: I believe that the morale at my workplace is worse today than it was 4 years ago ........... 67
Table 29: Survivor syndrome, analyzed between victims and survivors. ......................................... 67
Table 30: Organizational commitment & satisfaction, statistical analyzes of questions 25-32 ........ 68
Table 31: Job satisfaction analyzed by genders. ............................................................................... 68
Table 32: Job satisfaction analyzed by victims and survivors .......................................................... 69
Table 33: Organizational commitment analyzed between genders ................................................... 70
Table 34: Organizational commitment analyzed between victims and survivors ............................. 71
Table 35: I have wanted to change jobs in the past few years .......................................................... 73
Table 36: Sense of guilt towards layoff victims, statistical analyzes of questions 10 – 12............... 74
Table 37: Perceived guilt because my coworker was laid off but I was not ..................................... 75
Table 38: Sense of layoff justice, statistical analyzes for questions 7-9 ........................................... 77
Table 39: the procedure that the company used to select those who were let go was fair ................ 78
Table 40: Sense of envy towards layoff victims, statistical analyzes of questions 13-15 ................. 82
Table 41: Sense of work-overload, statistical analyzes of questions 33-37 ...................................... 86
Table 42: I never seem to have enough time to get everything done ................................................ 86
Table 43: I have too much work to do everything well .................................................................... 86
Table 44: The amount of work I am asked to do is fair .................................................................... 87
viii
Table 45: More contribution today to the work than before ............................................................. 87
Table 46: More hours put into work to be able to finish the same amount of work ......................... 87
Table 47: Sense of work-overload, analyzed between victims and survivors................................... 88
ix
1
Introduction
This chapter consists of background information concerning the research topic followed by
support for the research topic, the research problem and the research question. Specific
hypothesis will be stated with the aim of answering the research question.
1.1 Background
The global financial and economic crisis that started in 2008 has been a major economic
and political crisis in Iceland. It started with the failure of Lehman brothers and only few
days later all of the three major Icelandic commercial banks, which accounted for almost all
of the banking system in Iceland, collapsed following their difficulties in the global
financial markets. Relative to the size of the Icelandic economy, this collapse is the largest
crash by any country in the whole economic history (Economist, 2008). The aftermath has
been a deep recession in Iceland and the population still has not seen great signs of
recovery. The national currency took a deep fall, the Icelandic stock market fell by more
than 90%, and the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 5.5% in real terms in
the first six months of 2009 (Statistics Iceland, 2009).
The topic of this thesis is about the aftermath in Icelandic companies after the economic
downturn in 2008. During and after the crisis the focus has been on workers that lost their
jobs and their livelihood because of the economic downturn. News about how many
workers are currently being laid off and how many workers are looking for a job have been
pronounced over that last few years. Given the circumstances that is understandable
because in historical context, unemployment in Iceland has been very low and until the
crisis hit in 2008, the country had one of the lowest unemployment rates compared to the
OCED countries (OECD, 2012a). Shortly after the economic downturn started in Iceland
the unemployment rate rose considerably mainly because many companies have had to
resort to layoffs and some even to group layoffs. This is not only the case in Iceland but all
over the industrial world. When people get laid off a certain process starts, which does not
only affect the people that get laid off but also the organization and those who stay behind.
1
1.2 Subject motivation
In December 2007 the researcher started working for FL Group (a holding company) that
later changed its name to Stoðir. Already at that time the company was in financial
difficulties and within 4 months the management team had to lay off 6 employees. The total
number of employees was around 25 at this time so that meant that almost 30% of the total
number of employees was laid off at once. The atmosphere at the workplace after the
layoffs was very uncomfortable since most of the people that were still standing could not
help but to think: Will I be next? The tension continued and bad news about the company
and the name change did not help the employees to relax at the office. At the end of
September 2008 it was suddenly clear that the company was going bankrupt when the
biggest part of the investment portfolio, Íslandsbanki, went under and was taken over by
the government. As a result of that all the remaining staff was laid off. A number of people
were asked to assist with some issues that needed to be taken care of but almost everyone
was gone within 3-6 months. After this experience, the researcher changed jobs and started
working for Straumur Investment Bank in December 2008. In March 2009 the same thing
happened. The bank was nationalized because the liquidity position was no longer strong
enough to sustain activities (David Ibison, 2009). Again, a majority of the staff was laid off
and only a few employees remained.
To be a part of two big group layoffs within 6 months was an unexpected and unpleasant
experience. At this time, Iceland and Icelandic companies were sailing into a period of
large group layoffs. The economic downturn that started for real in October 2008 is an
unforgettable period for most Icelanders. Many companies have been declared bankrupt
since that time, three major financial institutions collapsed and had to be taken over by the
government, the Icelandic currency, the krona, was suddenly on life support and a number
of workers lost their jobs.
To look at this with a positive eye, the economic crisis has also created a unique research
opportunity. The labor market suddenly changed and many survivors of layoffs are now
working in a new environment even though they still work for the same company as they
did before the crisis. Being an employee of a financial institution at this time of crisis
created a curiosity in me as a researcher to look into the subject of survivors of layoffs and
how the layoffs can change the workplace.
2
1.3 Research problem
Previous research in this subject area has mainly focused on individuals that have to cope
with unexpected job loss and long term unemployment (Leana & Ivancevich, 1987; Leana
& Feldman, 1994). Early literature concerning layoffs and downsizing has also focused
mainly on those individuals that were dismissed from their jobs (Arroba, 1979). After 1980
most emphasis was still on those who were made redundant from their work places.
However there seems to be a trace of academic journals during that time that started to
focus on downsizing and how it was affecting the individual as a survivor (CampbellJamison, Worrall, & Cooper, 2001). According to Campbell – Jamison et.al (2001), Joel
Brockner appears to be one of the first to investigate the impact layoffs can have on
survivors of downsizing. Brockner has in collaboration with his colleagues used a variety
of frameworks and methods to better understand and explain the survivors’ reaction to
corporate layoffs. Brockner has used theories such as equity theories and justice theories to
better predict the survivors’ reactions to layoffs. He has also used psychological states such
as self-esteem and stress theory to explain the survivors’ reactions. It was in the mid
1980’s that the focus changed from voluntary layoffs to involuntary layoffs and the
downsizing phenomenon has become a great research topic for many researchers since
then.
The purpose of this thesis is to look into the situation that Icelandic companies were forced
to deal with in the wake of the economic downturn in 2008. In such a severe downturn
companies are often forced to downsize their workforce but the workload stays the same
but gets transferred to the survivors. This means that the same amount of work will be
performed by fewer employees. For the survivors the working environment has changed,
there is no debate about that. The environment can become stressful for many reasons and
for the survivors it is just as stressful as for the laid off victims (Dragano, Verde, &
Siegrist, 2005). The survivors who often do not have the experience or the knowledge to
take on more work may get overburdened when the workload from the laid off employees
falls on them to perform. This situation is subject to increase the level of stress among the
remaining employees. Survivors’ reactions may also include anger, resentment, low
morale, guilt, anxiety, withdrawal, apathy and relief. Removal of coworkers can also lead to
higher levels of job insecurity (Winston James & Li-Ping Tang, 1996). Some researchers
3
have even suggested that survivors may experience feelings of guilt for own survival at the
workplace (Allen, 1997; Kim S Cameron, Freeman, & Mishra, 1995) and furthermore that
they might have experienced envy towards the victims after the downsizing has taken place
(Kinnie, Hutchinson, & Purcell, 1998).
This aim of this thesis is to explore the situation that occurred in Icelandic labor market in
the time that has passed since the economic crisis hit the country and look at the morale
problems that might have occurred among the remaining employees after downsizing.
Other researchers have dealt with this situation and to get an international perspective on
survivors’ reaction, findings in other countries will be briefly discussed. Since this topic has
not been greatly dealt with in Iceland this thesis can be a fulfillment to the already
researched topics that deal with similar situations. Icelandic studies on survivors will also
be briefly discussed later in this thesis.
That being said, the main research question for this thesis will be stated as follows:
Does corporate downsizing actuate a negative impact on the survivors of downsizing?
In order to answer the research question, the following hypothesis regarding job insecurity,
guilt and envy on the survivors of downsizing will be stated as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Survivors will have experienced job insecurity.
Hypothesis 2: Survivors will show signs of guilt towards the laid off victims.
Hypothesis 3: Survivors will have experienced envy towards the laid off victims.
The economic downturn created a unique research opportunity and the subject of survivors
is very fitting at this time. Few years have passed since the crisis struck Iceland and many
survivors are still working for a downsized company. It will interesting to find out if
survivors in Icelandic companies will experience the same reactions as can be found in
other countries all over the world.
4
1.44 Structurre of the reesearch
Thiis research consists off seven chaapters, as figure 1 shows. In the first chapteer an
intrroduction to the researchh was put foorward and the researchh problem was
w analyzedd. The
second chapter presents thee literature reeview. In thee third chaptter a concepttual framewoork is
c
the methodology
m
y used
presented (baseed on the liteerature revieew). The fouurth chapter covers
in this
t thesis. In
n chapter fivve the resultss from the stuudy are pressented. Chappter six covers the
anaalysis of thee study that was conduucted in thiss thesis. At last, discusssion of finddings,
connclusion and
d recommenddation for futture researchh will be disccussed in chhapter 7.
Chappter 1: Introd
duction
Chapterr 2: Literaturre Review
Chapter 3: Frame off Reference
Chap
pter 4: Methoodology
Chapteer 5: Data Preesentation
Chhapter 6: Anaalysis
Chapter 7: Discussion & Implications
Figure 1: Ressearch structurre
5
2
Literature review
This chapter reviews earlier studies related to the research question in chapter one. More
specifically, history and recent development regarding corporate downsizing will be discussed.
2.1 History
The downsizing term was first used in an organizational setting in the 1980 and applied to a
process of cutting back employees when business and government in the U.S. began
making major reductions to their employee bases in response to recessionary pressures.
Thus, the term downsizing became associated with workforce reduction (Littler &
Gandolfi, 2008). Downsizing has been used as a managerial tool in corporations and
governmental bodies around the world. It was used as a strategy to change the
organizational structure, to make it more streamlined but with respect to the number of
personnel employed by the firm. As downsizing became more widespread, the term was
applied to a broader range of managerial efforts to improve a firm’s performance (Gandolfi,
2008). As a strategic managerial tool, downsizing has transformed thousands of companies
and governmental agencies and the lives of millions of employees and their families all
around the world (Amundson, Borgen, Jordan, & Erlebach, 2004).
There is an extensive literature available on downsizing, reflecting its existence in countries
like the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan in the 1980s,
1990s, and the early days of the new millennium (K.S Cameron, Freeman, & Mishra, 1991;
Kim S Cameron, 1994; Dolan et al., 2000; Campbell-Jamison et al., 2001) and also in
South-Africa (Vermeulen & Wiesner, 2000). Reflection on downsizing in these countries
will be discussed later in this chapter.
2.2 Definitions
According to Cascio (1993) does downsizing refer to the planned removal of jobs or
positions. This means that the primary purpose of downsizing is reduction of workforce.
However, the meaning of downsizing can vary considerably between researchers therefore
it is important to define the meaning of downsizing in this research paper. According to
Cameron (1994, p.192) downsizing is described as:
6
…a set of activities, undertaken on the part of the management of an organization
and designed to improve organizational efficiency, productivity, and/or
competitiveness.
Downsizing is not something that happens to a company/organization, it is merely a
procedure that members or managers of the organization intentionally undertake.
Downsizing usually means reduction in personnel and that will be the meaning of this
procedure in this research paper. Downsizing is also forced to affect work processes
whether that is intentionally or not. When the workforce needs to be reduced fewer
employees are left to do the same amount of work. This action therefore affects how the
work is done and what work is done. Some downsizing methods may include some
redesign of work processes but whether or not that is done the result will always be that
work processes are influenced in one way or another by the downsizing decision (Cameron,
1994).
Before continuing, it is appropriate to define those who become most affected by the
downsizing decision. First to mention are the victims that suddenly lose their jobs and leave
the workplace and will hereafter be referred to as victims of layoffs. Secondly, the
survivors are the employees who remain in the workplace when their coworkers and/or
friends have been laid off and are referred to as survivors of layoffs. Last to mention is the
executioner, who is the person that executes the layoffs (Gandolfi, 2008). A more detailed
description of these partakers in this process will be defined later in this chapter.
2.3 Downsizing causes
Many scholars have put forward various downsizing causes and driving forces, however
there does not seem to be a one single cause that can explain and account for the emergence
and pervasiveness of the phenomenon that downsizing is (Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011).
Radcliff et al. (2001) talk about 3 types of downsizing causes. The first is the classical
cause or what can be called the cost-saving downsizing method. This type of downsizing
can be driven by a variety of market forces that is beyond the control of the company.
Managers are often forced to use this method to cut costs within the company most likely
because of financial stress, technological change or because of a reaction to competition
and as part of industry conditions.
7
The second type of downsizing type is strategic downsizing. Companies use this type of
downsizing when there is a need to refocus on some specific parts of the operation.
Strategic downsizing tends to occur as direct consequences of changes in top company
management. For example when a new leader is in control and he feels anxious to establish
himself as a leader, he can resort to downsizing as a necessary procedure. In this sense
strategic downsizing illustrates the work of managers that need to draw up a group of
businesses that makes sense as a unified group (Radcliffe, Campbell, & Fogarty, 2001).
The third type of downsizing, according to Radcliff et al. (2001) is downsizing that is
caused by mergers and acquisition. This type of downsizing is different from the other two
previously mentioned mainly because it means new businesses and operations under the
corporate tent and therefore dispositions are likely to happen. Restructuring is therefore
inevitable and it forces the managers to consider all downsizing and restructuring
possibilities (Radcliffe et al., 2001).
Downsizing might also be caused by financial difficulties or crises which are among the
most dominant reason for downsizing (Cascio, 1993). In a global economic downturn or a
recession, as occurred in 2008, it is safe to say that many firms and organizations had to
resort to downsizing due to foreseeable financial losses.
There have been many explanations put forward to explain why firms resort to downsizing.
To put forward one holistic explanation is undervaluing the perplexity of the downsizing
phenomenon. The most common downsizing causes have been discussed here but it is
important to remember that each downsizing decision represents various factors and in the
end they most likely will all result in workforce restructure (Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011).
2.4 Downsizing consequences
When downsizing takes place inside an organization it is bound to impact both the
individuals (victims and survivors) and the organization. As previously discussed, reasons
for downsizing can be various though in most cases it is executed as a cost-saving
procedure for the company that plans to eliminate workers (Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011).
The anticipated result from the downsizing procedure is expected to yield economic as well
as organizational benefits (Cascio, 1993). However there seems to be scant evidence for an
overall success, effectiveness and efficiency of this strategy if we look at this from the
8
viewpoint of financial, organizational and human resource benefits (Gandolfi & Hansson,
2011).
2.4.1
Financial consequences
Number of research both cross-sectional and longitudinal have shown that while some
organizations have reported financial reformation after downsizing, a majority of
downsized firms have failed to improve levels of e.g. efficiency, effectiveness, productivity
and profitability (Cascio, 1993; Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011). The downsizing literature
reveals in most cases an overwhelmingly negative picture of the financial benefits of
downsizing. Some researchers have indicated positive financial consequences in the short
term but the long term effect appears to have shown to be consistently negative. It is
important to realize that researchers have applied diverse measures for their analysis and
there is no empirical evidence that suggests that there is a correlation between downsizing
and improved financial performance (Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011; Gandolfi, 2009).
2.4.2
Organizational consequences
According to Palmer, Kabanoff and Dunford (1997) downsizing is expected to generate
financial and organizational benefits and one of the major economic benefit that is expected
is a direct increase in shareholder value. The procedure is rationalized by stating that future
costs are more predictable than future revenues and cutting costs now should translate into
higher profits in the future. What organizations expect from the downsizing procedure
includes lower overheads, less bureaucracy, faster decision making, smoother
communications, greater entrepreneurship, and increased productivity and some studies
have shown these positive outcomes (C. L. Cooper & Burke, 2000). However, most
empirical findings suggest that majority of corporate restructurings lack the objectives of
downsizing and what issues it raises within the organization. Corporate downsizing
actuates decreased morale, decreased productivity and an increased level of conflicts and
loss of trust within the organization (Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011).
2.4.3
Human consequences
Like explained before, there are three categories of people that are directly affected by the
downsizing procedure namely survivors, victims and executers. It has been argued that the
consequences that downsizing has on these three groups are immense and far-reaching
(Gandolfi, 2008). It is often assumed that is must be better to be a downsizing survivor than
9
a victim since the survivor at least has a job to go to. Nonetheless, downsizing practice has
not shown evidence that the survivors are in a better place than the victims and some may
argue that in the end it will be the survivors that turn out to be the victims as will be
discussed below (Gandolfi, 2008).
2.4.4
Victims
When organizations resort to downsizing it can be for many reasons and employees are
often let go due to reasons independent of their job competence. This means that people are
laid off e.g. when structural changes inside the company are executed or due to external
factors. These employees are called victims of layoffs (Devine, Reay, Stainton, & CollinsNakai, 2003). Majority of research on the individual reaction to corporate downsizing has
mainly focused on layoff victims, not survivors or executioners (Amundson et al., 2004).
Previous research expose strong evidence of unsympathetic effects resulting from job loss
that can depict itself in psychological stress, ill health, family problems, marital problems,
lower self-esteem, depression and feelings of social isolation. Furthermore there is some
evidence showing that job loss that is caused by downsizing can generate damage to the
victims’ careers (Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011). Factors such as gender, age, financial
position, social support, length of unemployment and educational level may affect how the
individual reacts to a sudden unemployment (Leana & Ivancevich, 1987).
However it is possible to find a positive side to this situation. If the downsizing is well
executed and the victims receive support and training they might not experience as bad
reaction to the downsizing as previously described. For example, Devine et. al (2003)
found out that victims who found new jobs post-downsizing reported much more positive
outcomes than the employees who remained in the downsized organization. These victims
felt lower levels of stress on the job and reported higher levels of perceived job control and
also they experienced fewer negative effects than the survivors (Devine et al., 2003).
Being a victim of downsizing is a life changing experience and there are both good and bad
sides to look at. It is evident that many aspects of the process can be research material but
the focus in this research paper will be on the survivors of layoffs.
10
2.5 Survivors
Like explained before, the survivors of layoffs are the employees who stay with the
downsized company/organization after layoffs have taken place. How the survivors react to
layoffs in the workplace can be crucial for the company they work for. Most of the time,
the future of a company is dependent on the survivors and how they behave and work after
the cutbacks are complete. Therefore, employee morale and productivity becomes vital to
the future functioning of the organization (Winston James & Li-Ping Tang, 1996).
Many scholars have researched the behaviors and attitudes of employees that are affected
by the downsizing process, especially the survivors of downsizing (Al-Kazemi, 1998;
Nixon, Hitt, Ho-Uk, & Jeong, 2004). Results from this research have, for the most part,
revealed that downsizing has a negative effect on the survivors. These negative attitudes
and behaviors can reveal themselves in the form of reduced employee morale, satisfaction,
commitment, communication, team work and job security just to name a few. All these
negative attitudes can be put together in one and be referred to as “survivor syndrome”
(Williams, Khan, & Naumann, 2011).
2.5.1
Survivor syndrome
The survivor syndrome is, like explained above, a cluster of the entire negative workforce
outcome that survivors experience after layoffs. Besides from the factors mentioned in the
previous section, survivors have the tendency to show dysfunctional work behaviors and
attitudes, such as decreased motivation (Kinnie et al., 1998), decreasing morale (Cameron,
1994; Smeltzer & Zener, 1994) and decreased satisfaction at the workplace (Redman &
Keithley, 1998; Armstrong-Stassen, 1993). Furthermore, survivors have showed increased
level of absenteeism (Campbell-Jamison, Worrall, & Cooper, 2001; Gandolfi, 2005) and
distrust towards management (Cascio, 1993; Greenhalgh & Rosenblatt, 1984). This is also
the case according to Kinnie, Hutchinson and Purcell (1998) who found out that, survivors
have shown increased levels of stress, absenteeism and distrust towards management. In the
same research they also found that levels of work quality, morale and productivity had
decreased among survivors (Kinnie et al., 1998).
Gandolfi (2008) divides the survivor syndrome into three categories depending on how the
symptoms affect the survivor. These three groups Gandolfi calls survivor sickness 1, 2 and
3. The first category deals with the emotions, behaviors and attitudes that the survivors
11
show after downsizing. These factors include a variety of psychological states in the
survivors, e.g. guilt, anger, relief and job insecurity. When the survivor is in such mental
stage it will influence his/her work behaviors and attitudes such as motivation, job
satisfaction, commitment and performance (Gandolfi, 2008). The second category deals
with survivors’ guilt that can take place both during and after downsizing and refers to the
guilt that survivors might experience because their fellow coworker/friend was laid off but
they themselves survived. The third and final category deals with survivors’ envy and that
takes place after the downsizing is complete and refers to perceived envy towards the laid
off employees that left the workplace. These three sicknesses will now be discussed
independently because they make up for the conceptual framework in chapter 3.
2.5.1.1
Job insecurity
One of the researched psychological states concerning the survivor syndrome is job
insecurity. Many conditions within a company can create the feeling of job insecurity
among survivors. Workplaces have a tendency to create friendship ties and those ties can be
shattered when one friend is laid off and the other one stays. People who make close
relationships at the workplace can identify closely with leavers and are more likely to take
the layoffs more personally than those who don´t. There are also external factors that can
influence the survivors’ job insecurity because the survivors who perceive that the job
market will not absorb the laid off employees are more likely to experience the feeling of
job insecurity. Anxiety is also connected to job insecurity and that may influence the
performance of the survivors in the form of decreased productivity and possibly quality of
work. High levels of job insecurity can also result in lower levels of morale and strained
employee relations. Some survivors might also feel hostile towards the organization that
they work for (Winston James & Li-Ping Tang, 1996). When looking into the hierarchy
status of employees, no one is excluded not even those who hold higher positions although
executive managers are less likely to experience job insecurity than middle managers
(Armstrong-Stassen, 2005). Age can also be a determinant factor concerning job insecurity
and research has shown that older people can become more affected than younger people
(Naswall & De Witte, 2003). Research has also shown that middle-aged people are in more
danger to be affected than both younger and older people. On the one hand, it might be
more difficult for older people to find new careers if their careers suddenly ended and on
the other hand middle-aged people are more dependent on their jobs because of their
12
financial commitments (De Witte, 1999; Naswall & De Witte, 2003). A study that was
processed in 2001 showed that men revealed a stronger relation between stress of job
insecurity and its negative outcomes than women in Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden
although the difference was not significant. Suggestions were made that men might feel
that they are the head of the family and greater supporters financially and therefore they
might feel more threatened when there is a probability that they might lose their job
(Naswall & De Witte, 2003).
According to Brockner, Davy and Carter (1985) survivors may engender perceived job
insecurity when they experience their coworkers being dismissed. Anecdotal evidence has
suggested that survivors can experience considerable amount of remorse in this situation
which can be referred to as survivor guilt (Brockner, Davy, & Carter, 1985).
2.5.2
Survivor guilt
The second survivor sickness is called survivor guilt. Gandolfi (2008) explains the survivor
guilt as a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offence. The survivors express these
feelings in term of depression, fear and anger (Noer, 2009). To further explain the survivor
guilt Gandolfi (2008) compares this sickness to the combat syndrome, a soldier in combat
experiences feelings of guilt if a fellow soldier dies in a combat. This is explained by
feelings of relief for own survival but also feelings of enormous guilt that he was the one
that survived and not his fellow soldier (Allen, 1997). Survivors have shown signs of
survivors guilt for example when they receive their paychecks and they know a fellow
coworker that is suddenly without a job. Survivors who work overtime have also shown
signs of survivor guilt. One downsizing survivor explained this situation very well when
she said:
“It makes you feel bad that you’re working overtime and others are desperate. I
wish that (other) people could come in and work my overtime hours. If they could
work a few hours a day, they could save their homes” (Brockner et al., 1985).
The survivor guilt is most likely to appear when the survivors feel that the terminations are
not fairly handled (Brockner et al., 1985). Schweiger, Ivancevich and Power (1987)
detected that it was not the terminations per se that provoked the survivor guilt among
survivors but merely the manner in which the procedure was handled. In their research the
13
survivors expressed feelings of anger and disgust when their coworkers were fired and felt
guilty that they themselves were not a part of the downsizing group (Schweiger,
Ivancevich, & Power, 1987). Furthermore, the survivors also expressed the same feelings
when they perceived that the coworkers who were let go performed at least as well or even
better that the survivors did at the workplace. According to Appelbaum et.al. (1999) the
perceived feelings of anger, bitterness and disgust among survivors may result in survivor
guilt when the survivors experience a layoff of a coworker.
The survivor guilt might also be connected to some historic theories. Social behavioral
theories have in some degree been set forth to explain the behavior and attitudes of
employees in the work place. These theories have been used for years to explain different
kind of behavioral patterns ranging from motivation to layoffs (Adams, 1963). In 1963 J.
Stacey Adams put forward one of the most researched social comparison theories in the
world that is entitled “The equity theory”. This theory is directed at the consequences when
people sense that they are putting more in (input) than they are taking out (output). In
correlation to work and working environment, people seek balance between what they put
in to the job e.g. effort, loyalty, determination, hard work and commitment and what they
take out of the job e.g. salaries, perks, benefits, recognition, responsibility, training,
promotion and more. People have the need to sense the balance between the inputs and the
outputs to feel that they are being fairly treated (Adams, 1963; Greenberg, Ashton-James,
& Ashkanasy, 2007). The sense of perceived fairness is explained by comparison of one
person’s equity or inequity to another person/individual or a group that Adams (1963)
refers to as referent. If an employee feels that his treatment is inequitable, compared to
others, he or she will be motivated to do something about it, which is seeking justice. For
example when an employee senses that he is being underpaid compared to others he/she
will be motivated to seek justice and reduce inequity. Among reactions from employees is
less input, complaints, criticism to others performance or inputs and also emotional
withdrawal e.g. absenteeism, tardiness or to quit (Adams, 1963). According to Greenberg
et al. (2007) are individuals who have been treated unfairly more likely to reveal less job
satisfaction than those who feel that they are being fairly treated.
14
It is argued that survivors should not feel guilty that their coworkers were laid off because
the situation is beyond their control but research has shown that many survivors experience
guilt and feel responsible for their coworkers’ dismissal (Brockner et al., 1985).
2.5.3
Survivor envy
The third survivor sickness, Gandolfi (2008) calls survivor envy. The survivor envy is the
simplest sickness of the other two already mentioned and has received less attention and
research than the other two (Littler, 1998). The survivor envy emerges when survivors
experience jealousy towards those who leave the organization (Kinnie et al., 1998;
Campbell-Jamison et al., 2001). Research has shown that companies that resort to layoffs
focus mostly on the downsizing victims, and for a good reason. They are the victims and
they need counseling, help and support to get their lives back on track (Amundson et al.,
2004; Allen, 1997). The survivors are supposed to feel happy and grateful that they still
have a job but they know what the victims will receive when they walk out besides the
counseling and support, namely various benefit packages. Survivors tend to believe that the
victims will obtain either generous retirement incentive or perhaps new jobs with even
more benefits or higher compensation (Allen, 1997). Even more, the survivors might sense
that the benefit packages that the victims received could limit their own possibilities of
obtaining financial support when their time comes to leave the company whether that is
voluntary or not (Mollica & DeWitt, 2000).
This raises the question of who is actually lucky in this sense, those who leave or those who
stay behind. The ones who stay are often faced with heavier workload, more responsibility
and potentially higher level of stress for little or no extra compensation (Campbell-Jamison
et al., 2001). Littler (1998) even stated that at times the survivors felt like the poor idiots
that were left behind to clean up the mess within a downsized organization with limited
resources (Littler, 1998).
2.6 Executioner
The person who implements the downsizing process is called executioner. This person is
most likely an employee, a manager or a consultant that is entrusted with this process inside
the given organization (Downs, 1995). Research in the emotional responses of the
executioner is very slim but there is some evidence that shows that the implementers of
downsizing suffer from similar symptoms as the victims and the survivors. That means that
15
to the implementers the downsizing process is both emotionally and professionally
challenging (Gandolfi, 2007).
Ian Ashman (2012) believes that the phrase executioner does not do justice to the role that
the person who needs to break the news of redundancies to his/her colleagues takes on. He
prefers the name envoy because it is much in balance with the requirements of the role. In
his research, Ashman interviewed many envoys who all agreed that the downsizing process
was emotionally hard and many described this fate as to be the worst job they ever had to
do. These envoys also reported that the closer the relationship with the victims the harder
their task was to perform (Ashman, 2012).
2.7 Psychological contract
When people are hired into an organization (both managers and other employees) they are
encouraged to feel like a part of a family. In the family the managers are the “parents” and
they take on the beneficial parent role. The organizational employees, from executives to
production workers, are then taken care of and the employees form some kind of a
subjective contract with the employer (Noer, 2009). This contract is not a signed contract
but it means that both the employer and the employee have an idea of what is expected of
them. It is expected that the employer fits into the organization and the team, does the work
well and what is expected from him as an employee. In return the employer offers
compensation and opportunities within the company. This relationship between the
employer and the employee is often referred to as the psychological contract (Shore &
Tetrick, 1994).
Rousseau (1989) defines the psychological contract as an individual’s belief regarding the
terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between two parties that is,
between the employee and the employer. This psychological contract establishes itself
when one party believes that a promise of future return has been conducted (e.g. pay for
performance) or a contribution has been given (e.g. some form of exchange) and thus, an
obligation has been created to provide future benefits (Rousseau, 1989). This contract is not
like other formal contracts in the sense that it is essentially perceptual and that makes it
vulnerable since there is no guarantee that one’s party perception of the contract will be
shared by the other (Parks & Schmedemann, 1994; Rousseau, 1989). Even though the
16
psychological contract is highly subjective it supports strong expectations of good faith and
fair manners from both parties (Parks & Schmedemann, 1994). Although it is not possible
to guarantee a common understanding of the psychological contract, one of its major
features is the individual’s belief that the agreement is mutual and a common understanding
is established that binds the employee and the employer together (Rousseau, 2001).
After the World War II, employees were considered a long term asset to the organization
and they were retained and nurtured and had a career within an organization for years.
Anyone that was able to work and fit into the culture could count on a job until themselves
decided to leave or retire. This old psychological contract began to unravel about twenty
years ago (Noer, 2009). The new psychological contract began to show its face around the
new millennium when both employers and employees were seduced back into complacency
by the liquidity and the economic boom that took place at that time. With the financial
meltdown in 2008 the world is facing the jolting reality of a worldwide wake-up call. In the
past four years or so the worldwide labor market has been caught up in unprecedented
global economic layoffs and also the toxic reactions of survivor sickness on both
individuals and organizations (Noer, 2009). The old psychological contract was described
with the following key words: stability, permanence, predictability, fairness, tradition, and
mutual respect. The new contract, however, is described primarily as a short-term
relationship between two parties with main emphasis on flexibility, self-reliance and
achieving prompt results (Hiltrop, 1996).
2.7.1
Changes in the work environment
The current economic landscape has put pressure on organizations to better structure,
motivate and retain employees. New markets and global competition have forced
companies to adjust to the modern landscape by e.g. cutting costs, lower prices or increase
productivity. The current business environment needs skilled employees at every level of
the organization. Human resource managers have the difficult task to find and attract the
best individuals that have the right combination of factors that the organization is looking
for. For this process to be a success it is essential that the organization understands what the
individual desires from the employment relationship (Lester, Kickul, & Eau, 2001). These
changes along with the demand for a flexible labor market has resulted in changes in the
psychological contract, the most valuable change though being that companies cannot offer
17
job security as they did before but still they do not want to lose the loyalty and commitment
of their employees (Hiltrop, 1996). Downsizing, among other things is putting the
psychological contract in jeopardy in firms today (Cappelli, 1992). The obligation that used
to exist between the employer and his workplace is being replaced with a more unforeseen
relationship (Morrison & Robinson, 1997).
2.8 International research
In our constantly changing economy researchers find many important and interesting issues
to research. Corporate downsizing is one of these issues and researchers have studied this
phenomenon to better understand the impact it has on business practices (Kim S Cameron,
1994). Researchers have put emphasis on the victims of layoffs and their experience and
personal responses towards corporate downsizing but few studies have focused on the
survivors of a workforce reduction (Amundson et al., 2004). Downsizing it not a new
phenomenon and job elimination and employee cutbacks have made its appearance in
organizations and companies all over the world. Most empirical evidence derive from the
United States (US) e.g. previous researchers from Brockner et.al (1985), Gandolfi (2008)
and Noer (2009) who all have studied the survivor syndrome in the U.S. To get an
international perspective research from other countries, which deal with similar topics as
the current study, will now be dealt with.
2.8.1
Canada
In Amundson et.al (2004) research, the issue of survivors is greatly dealt with. In this
particular research downsizing survivors in Canada are interviewed to determine incidents
that either helped or hindered their transition through the downsizing process. The authors
divide their themes into 2 categories namely: Moving into and moving through (this means
the questions that deal with the incidents that occur in the beginning and through the
downsizing process) and moving on (this category deals with the ending of the downsizing
process). The first category deals with the following themes: the downsizing process,
coworker relationships, leadership, communication, feeling valued, morale, life after work,
possible job loss and organizational support. The second category deals with two themes,
the new job and new coworkers. All themes were equally represented across gender and
also both through the private and public sector.
18
The participants reported both negative and positive incidents towards all the emerging
themes although the majority of the incidents were negative. Participants also reported both
hindering and helpful viewpoint to all the themes mentioned above. The two biggest
negative incidents were the downsizing process and coworker relationship. In the first one,
survivors were concerned about the restructuring process and in their responses to the
research they indicated that they would have wanted to understand and be more involved in
shaping the restructuring process. The survivors implied that they were reassured when
they could understand and have a voice in the process but experienced resentment when
their input was not valued or sought after. In the later one, the survivors reported negative
incidents involving the people that they worked with before. These negative incidents
included regret for the people that were let go and also feelings of sadness and loss. This is
in line with Brockner (1992) who experienced isolation and loneliness among survivors
when their coworkers were laid off. In the same research survivors also expressed feelings
of guilt and envy (Brockner, 1992).
It is common that employees form healthy and close relationships in the workplace and the
organization needs to be aware of that and respect these coworker relationships. The
survivors need time to say goodbye to the people that are leaving and grieve the
relationships that were formed. Survivors find it disturbing when the organization does not
allow them to prepare for, grieve or even acknowledge the loss of coworkers (Amundson et
al., 2004).
In this particular research the survivors also reacted to the way their colleagues were treated
by the organization when the resignations took place. When the layoff victims were treated
unfairly the survivors showed feelings of resentment and anger. On the other hand, when
the victims were handled sensitively and with care the survivors were more reassured and
felt better (Amundson et al., 2004).
The participants in the survey also noticed changes in their feelings towards the
organization. They also revealed that they sensed changes in their coworkers’ feelings and
that negative moods of other employees contributed to their own negativity. In relations to
morale, the survivors described feelings of anger, cynicism, resentment, fear and anxiety
both within themselves and among other employees (Amundson et al., 2004).
19
2.8.2
United Kingdom
In 2001, Jamison - Campbell, Worrall and Cooper examined the psychological implications
that downsizing can have on survivors. This research was done on two levels, individual
level and organizational level. Emotional, attitudinal and behavioral effects of layoffs on
survivors were examined as well as the resultant implications for management. Also, they
examined the impact of layoffs on the organization in terms of organizational morale,
motivation, organizational loyalty and job security. The main purpose of this study was to
explore the impact of layoffs in the U.K. and compare to similar studies that had been done
before in the U.S. The authors’ objective was to report a similar research that had already
been conducted in the U.S. and verify if the survivors experience between these two
countries differ considerably despite different legal and social – political frameworks
(Campbell-Jamison et al., 2001).
The researchers found out that the reactions of the survivors were in line with the previous
studies in the U.S. The survivors showed very negative reactions ranging from shock, guilt
and anger to disbelief and worry. The participants in the research felt strongly that they had
been let down by the organization and that the organization had broken the psychological
contract between them with the implications to destroy the trust that had been created. They
also felt that the layoffs were originated within the organization although the reason
appeared to be outside the control of management. The results also showed that the layoffs
affected the survivors’ well being in form of less sleep and negative impact on their life
outside work. The researchers also found that the layoffs had a damaging effect on the
organization in terms of morale, loyalty, motivation and commitment. In whole the survey
showed that the results from the U.S. studies could be supported and the survivors had
experienced a variety of negative emotions to the layoffs (Campbell-Jamison et al., 2001).
2.8.3
Australia
Research that was done in Australia also revealed that the survivors showed signs of the
survivors’ syndrome. These symptoms were negative morale, negative employee
commitment and increased concern in regards to job security. Motivation, job satisfaction
and commitment in the workplace also dropped in about 50 percent of the companies that
participated in the survey. All these factors are then related to a drop in productivity, but 60
20
percent of the companies that participated reported a drop in productivity after downsizing
and restructuring had taken place (Gettler, 1998).
Further on productivity, human resource professionals have described the symptoms of an
unproductive survivor culture as a lack of motivation, loyalty, trust and recommitment to
the new organization. The survivors show for example feelings of deception, guilt, anger
and frustration and all these feelings contribute to the low employee morale and lost
productivity (Cameron, 1994; Markowich, 1994). In his consulting work, David M. Noer
asked a group of managers that were working in a downsized environment to reflect on the
question: How productive is a workforce with these survivor feelings? (E.g. anger, hurt,
guilt and sadness). Most managers concluded that these feeling were indeed a barrier to
productivity within an organization (Noer, 2009). One of the most common reasons why
companies that downsize perform so poorly is that they may not be prepared for the low
morale and lower productivity experienced by the survivors of downsizing. Most
companies are anticipating and preparing for the employees who are laid off but not the
survivors (Isabella, 1989).
2.8.4
South-Africa
In the past twenty years or so South-African companies have had to deal with all kinds of
changes in their economic landscape, including socio-political changes, new governmental
regulations and re-introduction to global markets. These changes have called upon a
response from all sides including organization, private and public companies and the
government to react according to these changes. The responses have included downsizing
and restructuring in many places that has precisely resulted in workforce reduction and job
elimination (Vermeulen & Wiesner, 2000).
Vermeulen and Wiesner (2000) researched the survivor syndrome in South - African
companies in the year 2000 after examining downsizing figures from 1991 to 1996. The
researchers looked at variables like morale, staff commitment, perceived promotional
opportunities, motivation, job dissatisfaction and concern about job security. It is safe to
say that their analysis indicated that downsizing affected the survivors negatively.
Employee morale fell in 75.4% of the cases, commitment and motivation also decreased in
nearly 70% of the cases, while concern about job security rose in 80% of the cases. Their
research further indicated that the public sector was more affected by the downsizing
21
procedures and participants from the public sector showed more negative feedbacks than
the private sector.
Although the environment in South-Africa is affected by socio-political changes the results
show similar findings as in other countries. The survivor syndrome has hit the survivors in
South-Africa hard and it will be interesting to know if survivors in Icelandic companies
will be as greatly affected. First, it is important to recollect what has been happening in
Iceland in the past few years.
2.9 Recent experiences in Iceland
In early October 2008 the Icelandic economy suffered a great deal when the country´s three
largest banks collapsed and had to be taken over by the government. The Icelandic
currency, the krona, collapsed as well and Iceland was forced to secure help from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF (2008) calls the collapse of the 3 Icelandic
banks the biggest banking failure in history relative to the size of the economy. This severe
economic downturn in October 2008 forced many companies to lay off their employees
(International Monetary Fund, 2008).
2.9.1
Unemployment
If we look at history, unemployment in Iceland has been relatively low. From 1980 to 1990
the average percentage of unemployment fluctuated from 0.3% to 1.7%. It began to rise
after 1990 and peaked at 5.0% in 1995. In the year 2000 the unemployment rate fell to
1.3% and stayed between 1.3% and 3.4% until 2008. In 2009 the unemployment rate rose
to 8% on average for the year but peaked at 9.1% in April 2009. In 2010 the unemployment
peaked at 9.3% in February and March 2010. In 2011 the unemployment rate was on
reached a high of 8.6% in February and March. For the first 4 months of 2012 the
unemployment rate was 7.0% on average and lowest in April or 6.5% and that was 0.6%
less unemployment from the previous month (Directorate of Labour, 2012c). In the summer
months the unemployment rate usually decreases and in May the unemployment rate went
down to 5.6% and continued to decrease in June, July and August. For these months the
unemployment rate was 4.8% on average. The reason being the season among other things
since history has shown that unemployment normally decreases when people get hired for
summer jobs (Directorate of Labour, 2012c).
22
Figure 2 reveals the adjusted unemployment history in Iceland graphically from 1980 to
2011, which means that seasonal influences have been adjusted for in each year. It is
obvious that the bank crisis that occurred in 2008 has entailed the greatest unemployment
numbers in Iceland since the beginning of measurement.
Adjusted unemployment from 1980 - 2011
9,0%
8,0%
7,0%
6,0%
5,0%
4,0%
3,0%
2,0%
1,0%
0,0%
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
Adjusted unemployment
from 1980 - 2011
Figure 2: Adjusted unemployment in Iceland 1980-2011
Source: (Directorate of Labour, 2012c)
If we take a closer look at the unemployment numbers in the years after the economic crisis
in 2008 we can see how drastically the numbers go up (see table 1). Unemployment is a
little higher among men than women throughout this period but the most recent numbers
from the Directorate of Labor show that average unemployment in October 2012 was 5.2%
and was 4.7% among men and 5.8% among women (Directorate of Labor, 2012a).
Year
2008
2009
2010
2011
Men
1,5%
8,8%
8,6%
7,6%
Women
1,8%
7,1%
7,6%
7,3%
Total
1,6%
8,0%
8,1%
7,4%
Table 1: Unemployment among men and women (2008-2011).
Source: (Directorate of Labor, 2012c)
The Icelandic labor market laws ensure that workers in the labor market have 1- 6 months
notice depending on how long they have worked at the same place. The length of the layoff
notice can be determined in a cooperation with the employee that laid off, that is, if the
23
organization wants the employee to work through the resignation notice they can do so (Act
No. 63/2000, n.d.).
2.9.2
Labor force participation
Labor force participation in Iceland has always been high and higher than the average of
the OECD countries from 1998 – 2009 (OECD, 2012a). The definition of labor force
participation rate is the percentage of working-age people, people between the ages of 1664 that are currently employed or those who are looking for a job (Matt Moffatt, n.d.). In
the U.S. the labor force participation rate is usually around 66-68% (Bureau of labor
statistics, 2012). In comparison to Iceland, the labor force participation rate has been
around 88-89% from over the last 17 years or so. Like table 2 reveals, the labor force
participation rate went a little down in 2009 after the economic downturn, more among men
than women.
Year
1995
2000
2008
2009
2010
2011
Percentage
of men
88.4
89.8
90.9
88.4
88.2
87.8
Percentage
of Women
80.9
83.3
82.5
82.0
82.7
82.4
Total
percentage
84.7
86.6
86.9
85.3
85.5
85.2
Table 2: Labor force participation rate in Iceland (age 15-64).
Source: (OECD, 2012b)
In 2008 labor force participation among Icelandic men was 90.9% in Iceland which was the
highest rate among the OECD countries that year. In 2011 the labor force participation
among Icelandic men was in excess of 87%. Women in Iceland have also been very willing
to work outside their home and from 1995 the labor force participation rate among women
in Iceland has been from 80.9% (lowest) to 83.3% (highest) like table 2 shows (OECD,
2012b). In comparison, labor force participation among women in the OECD countries is
66% on average (“OECD. Better Life Index,” n.d.).
2.9.3
Group layoffs
Numbers of group layoffs rose sharply after the economic collapse in 2008 and many
people lost their jobs. According to Icelandic laws a group layoff takes place when at least
10 workers in a company with more than 20 workers and less than 100 workers are laid off
24
within a calendar month (Act No. 63, 2000). Since 2008 a total of 8.357 individuals have
been laid off in group layoffs and 80% of these jobs were in Reykjavík or the capital area.
Most layoffs have been in the construction industry and the financial sector. These two
markets had been the fastest growing sectors in Iceland from 2003 – 2007 (David Carey,
2009). Table 3 here below gives a clearer picture of how many individuals lost their jobs in
group – layoffs in the years following the bank crisis. Total of 209 announcements were
made to the Directorate of labor (Vinnumálastofnun) from 2008 to 2011 that resulted in
layoffs of 8.357 individuals.
Year
2008
2009
2010
2011
Total
Number of
individuals
laid off in group -layoffs
5.074
1.789
742
752
8.357
Table 3: Total number of individuals laid off in group-layoffs (2008-2011).
Source: (Directorate of Labour, 2012b)
Majority of these group layoffs were implemented in these years 2008 to 2011. To be
precise, terminations of 8.117 individuals took place in these years.
When looking at the implemented terminations from 2008 to 2011 in table 4 here below we
can see that out of the 8.117 laid off individuals, 4.472 individuals were employees of the
construction and financial industries, which is 55% of the total layoffs in these years
(Directorate of Labour, 2012b).
25
Sector
Fish processing
Industry
Distribution system
Construction
Commerce
Transportation
Hotel services
Publishing
Finance/Insurance
Special operations
Various services
Educational services
Health/social services
Culture/sport/leisure
Number of
implemented
layoffs
295
604
65
3.419
981
727
84
428
1.053
140
165
81
64
11
8.117
Percentage
of total
layoffs
4%
7%
1%
42%
12%
9%
1%
5%
13%
2%
2%
1%
1%
0%
100%
Table 4: Total reported layoffs by sectors (2008-2011).
Source: (Directorate of Labour, 2012b)
These numbers tell us how many people have been laid off in group layoffs from 2008 to
2011 and more importantly they tell us in which industries most layoffs have been
executed. It is fair to assume that there are survivors in all of these industries although they
are probably in majority in the construction and financial/insurance sectors. According to
Armstrong – Stassen (1993), layoffs affect different groups of employees across the
organizational hierarchy but there is little systematic research on how the effects differ
across industries. For that reason it will be interesting to know if layoff experience among
survivors in Icelandic differs across sectors.
2.9.4
Research in Iceland
Downsizing and the impact of downsizing on survivors has not been greatly dealt with in
Iceland. In 2009 Eiríka Guðrún Ásgrímsdóttir researched what impact downsizing in time
of crisis has on the survivors seen from the viewpoint of managers that executed the
layoffs. The viewpoints of the survivors themselves were however not researched. Few
others have looked into this subject in their undergraduate studies and researched other
aspects of this phenomenon. Anna Guðrún Tómasdóttir (2009) made this phenomenon as
her subject in her BS thesis in Business Administration when she researched the survivors
of an Icelandic airline company. The results of that research showed that the survivors
26
experienced more job insecurity, more demands at the workplace and much more stress
than a year before the layoffs (Anna Guðrún Tómasdóttir, 2009).
Counseling services like Capacent have also dealt with similar issues concerning the labor
market that give suggestions about the attitude from employees. Capacent conducted a
survey in 2010 among Icelanders that were active in the labor market with the aim to
explore downsizing methods in Icelandic companies. The results revealed that 80% of the
participants had been working in firms or organizations that had resorted to various
downsizing methods, the most common methods were indentation of travelling expenses,
overtime prohibition and cut in salaries to control or decrease cost. Participants in this
research reported decreased morale, lower trust in managers, diminishing loyalty and lower
job security in the organizations that had resorted to any downsizing methods in the
workplace (Tómas Bjarnason, 2010).
When the crisis hit Iceland, attitudes from employees were reviewed by comparing surveys
from the trade unions (VR and SFR) from the years before and after the downturn. On the
whole these surveys revealed that there were only small changes in the attitude of the
employees concerning: managers’ credibility, atmosphere at the workplace, fairness of
compensation, corporate culture, working conditions, happiness, pride and image of the
company in question (Eiríka Guðrún Ásgrímsdottir, 2009).
In 2009 Sigurlaug Elsa Heimisdóttir and Gylfi Dalmann Aðalsteinsson conducted an
Icelandic research among Human Resource (HR) Managers to explore how the economic
crisis affected Human Resource Management in Iceland. According to this research the
participants answered that the morale in the workplace had not changed after the crisis,
although some employees were working side by side an employee that had been laid off.
They also reported that productivity had not decreased after the bank crisis in 2008. A great
majority of participants admitted that other employees were afraid of being let go as well.
After the crisis the HR managers noticed a change in HR practices especially with hiring
freeze, prohibiting overtime and reducing job proportions (Sigurlaug Elsa Heimisdottir &
Gylfi Dalmann Aðalsteinsson, 2010).
Arney Einarsdóttir and Ásta Bjarnadóttir also conducted a study in 2010 that explored how
the economic collapse affected employees, their attitudes and job-related behaviors in the
27
Icelandic labor market and then they compared the impact of the public sector to the private
sector in this correlation. They looked at factors like job satisfaction, commitment,
organizational support (which refers to support from the organization, that can create a
positive connection with the employees performance), organizational citizenship behavior
(which is used to describe the will of employees that want to contribute more than what is
considered necessary), procedural justice (which refers to changes in procedures that the
company represents and whether or not the employees feel that these procedures are fair)
and finally optimism for the future among other elements. Results of this study imply that
there has been a positive change in factors like job satisfaction, loyalty, organizational
citizenship behavior, organizational support and fairness among employees in the public
sector. On the other hand, the development is not as positive among employees from the
private sector because they reported negative change in factors like organizational support,
procedural justice and optimism for the future. This study strongly suggests that employees
in the public sector have experienced more positive change since the economic collapse
than employees in the private sector (Arney Einarsdóttir & Ásta Bjarnadóttir, 2010).
Ásta Snorradóttir has recently explored the health and wellbeing among employees of the
Icelandic banks after the bank crisis. She conducted two surveys among members of SSF
(The Confederation of Icelandic Bank and Finance Employees) in 2009 and again in 2011
(Ásta Snorradóttir & Margrét Þorvaldsdóttir, 2011). According to the results of this
research are employees that survived the layoffs and are still working in the downsized
environment the ones who have experienced the most psychological distress. The ones
who lost their jobs and had not found a new one (in the short-term) and those who had
found new jobs felt better than those who survived the layoffs. Among the participants in
this research there were more than 25% of them who had feared losing their job and the
proportion was a little more among women than men. In 2009 50.70% of women feared
losing their job against 45.30% of men. In 2011 the perceived job insecurity had waned
considerable because at that time 29.1% of women and 22.5% of men were experiencing
job insecurity (Ásta Snorradóttir & Margrét Þorvaldsdóttir, 2011; Morgunblaðið, 2012;
Ásta Snorradóttir, 2011). These results indicate that there is job insecurity to be found
among survivors of layoffs and it will be interesting to know how men and women
experience job insecurity differently in the current study. This might also indicate that if
28
survivors are the ones who feel the worst after the bank crisis that they might envy the
victims or at least might feel that the victims were lucky to have left the downsized
organization.
Ásta´s research has definitely revealed some interesting results but her research is limited to
only one sector, which are bank employees. It is safe to say that this group has experienced
the bank crisis more profoundly than other groups since 20% of the workforce was laid off
permanently (Ásta Snorradóttir, 2011). It will be interesting to know if and how the
atmosphere among the survivors and the current employees has change since the crisis hit
the labor market now that few years have passed.
29
3
Frame of Reference
The aim of this chapter is to develop a conceptual framework that is based on the
theoretical framework discussed in chapter two. The conceptual framework will then be
used to organize and direct data collection for the remaining chapters.
3.1 Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework for this thesis is built on Gandolfi’s explanations of the survivor
syndrome. Like explained before in this thesis Gandolfi divides the survivor syndrome into
3 categories depending on how the symptoms affect the survivor and whether the
symptoms take place during or after downsizing (Gandolfi, 2008). As the literature review
describes there are many emotions, actions and attitudes associated with the survivor
sickness. To form this conceptual framework only few of these concepts previously
mentioned will be used. Figure 3 shows how Gandolfi defines the survivor sickness and
divides them into 3 categories. These categories will be the main foundation to form
questions and either support or reject the hypothesis stated in section 1.3.
Sickness 1:
Survivor Syndrome
Sickness 2:
Survivor Guilt
Sickness 3:
Survivor Envy
Figure 3: Survivor sickness categories
3.1.1
Sickness 1
The first sickness deals with the survivor syndrome that can both take place during and
after the downsizing process. This sickness embraces the following psychological states in
figure 4 and influences the work behavior of survivors:
Psychological states
•
•
•
•
•
Mental states influence:
Job insecurity
Guilt
Anger
Positive inequity
Relief
•
•
•
•
Figure 4: Survivor sickness 1, states and influences
30
Motivation
Commitment
Satisfaction
Work performance
Researchers have also found many symptoms that survivors have identified with in
previous surveys and the predominant ones are exposed in figure 5.
Symptoms include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Higher level of stress
Higher absenteeism
Higher level of distrust
Decreased work quality
Decreased morale
Decreased productivity
Decreased employee involvement
Decreased trust towards management
Figure 5: Survivor sickness 1, symptoms
The thesis will only focus on one of the psychological states derived from figure 4, namely
job insecurity. Then from the mental states influence, commitment to the organization and
job satisfaction will be addressed. The survivor sickness symptoms in figure 5 are many
and they all are interesting research subjects but they cannot all be explored in this study.
Therefore, it was decided to focus on two of these symptoms, namely lack of trust towards
the downsized organization and employee morale. That being said, the framework for
sickness 1 will be like displayed in figure 6.
Psychological state
Job insecurity
Influence
Commitment and
satisfaction
Other symptoms
Lack of trust and
morale
Figure 6: Survivor sickness 1, framework
3.1.2
Sickness 2
Survivor sickness number 2 deals with the survivor guilt which can take place during and
after the downsizing process. Feeling guilty over the fact that you survived the layoffs but
not your fellow coworker is not uncustomary. This feeling is common among survivors
31
especially when they feel that the victims were not fairly treated or that their performance
on the job was no better than the victims (Gandolfi, 2008). The most common feelings in
this situation are depression, fear and anger. To address the survivor guilt few things will be
looked into including feelings of relief for own survival, perceived fairness towards victims
and from the main feelings associated with survivor guilt, anger towards the organization.
Survivor guilt
•
•
•
Feelings
•
•
•
Feeling of relief for own
survival
Fairness towards victims
Own performance is
preceived the same as
the victims
Depression
Fear
Anger
Figure 7: Survivor sickness 2, guilt
3.1.3
Sickness 3
The last survivor syndrome is the survivor envy and according to Gandolfi (2008) this
sickness is the simplest one and takes place after the downsizing has been executed. The
reason being, that it only addresses the feelings of envy towards the victims. It can happen
that the survivors will experience that the victims are well treated but they themselves are
forced to take on extra work for no added compensation. To address this sickness the
survivors will be asked questions about perceived envy towards the victims and if and how
the workload has changed.
Survivor envy
•
Perceived effects
•
•
Feelings of envy toward
victims
Figure 8: Survivor sickness 3, envy
32
Change in workload
Change in hours on the
job
This being said, a one holistic framework has been established. This framework is the basis
for the process of this thesis and with it, it will be possible to answer the research question
as stated in chapter one.
Survivor Sickness
Sickness 1
Sickness 2
Sickness 3
Job Insecurity
Guilt
Envy
Commitment &
Satisfaction
Fairness towards
victims
Change in workload
Lack of trust
Morale
Anger
Figure 9: Survivor sickness, holistic framework
33
4
Methodology
In this chapter the methodology for this research paper will discussed and justified along
with guidelines for the gathering of the needed information.
4.1 Research design and approach
A research design is a plan and a procedure that a researcher composes and spans the
pathway from decisions to a detailed method of data sampling and analysis. This plan
involves making many decisions and it mainly evolves around the idea of how to make the
best design for a given topic. The selection of research design is mainly based on the nature
of the research problem and sometimes on personal experience of the researcher or even the
audience that it is presented for (Creswell, 2009).
According to Aaker et.al (2004) there are three types of research approaches and they differ
significantly in terms of research purpose, research questions, the accuracy of the suggested
hypothesis and also the data collection methods. These research approaches are Exploratory
research, Descriptive research and Causal research (Aaker et al., 2004).
Exploratory research method is used when there is little prior knowledge to build on or the
research problem is difficult to define. The research method can be highly flexible and
unstructured and the researcher has to start this process without having a sense of what the
result will be. In most cases this research method is conducted through qualitative methods
in forms of interviews or case studies (Aaker et al., 2004).
Descriptive research method is used when the researcher wants to get a firm perspective on
a particular part of the market environment. The research problem is well structured and
hypotheses do exist but in general when this method is used there is no intention to explore
causal relationships. This method is used to get a better understanding of a specific topic
(Aaker et al., 2004).
Causal research method is necessary to use when the researcher wants to show that one
variable is dependent on another variable. It can for example be used to measure what
impact a specific change will have on existing norms in a company and with the result the
company can better structure its business plan in the future (Aaker et al., 2004).
34
This thesis research question is as follows: Does corporate downsizing actuate a negative
impact on the survivors of downsizing? The characteristics of the question are mainly
descriptive. Hypotheses have been formed and the research problem is well structured and
based on the conceptual framework. Consequently, this thesis will be built on a descriptive
research method.
4.2 Research strategy
A research can be approached in quantitative, qualitative or mixed method way.
Quantitative approach is applicable when the sample size large, the questions are closed –
ended and when dealing with numeric data. Qualitative approach is most suitable when the
researcher wants to establish a meaning to given situation in form of few and deep
interviews, open-ended questions or through observation of the topic. The mixed method
approach is a collection of both Quantitative and Qualitative data and is used when the
researcher starts with a survey/experiment and then later changes to interviews to get more
detailed views from the participants (Creswell, 2009).
The research question and the hypotheses in this study imply that a quantitative method is
best suitable for this research since the research problem is well defined (Creswell, 2009).
The aim is to get answers from as many survivors as possible so the sample size might be
relatively large and the questions will be closed-ended.
4.3 Data collection
When dealing with a descriptive research method it is possible to use either primary or
secondary data resources. Secondary data is something that is already available and has
been used before in other studies e.g. a previously used questionnaire. Since this study has
not been explored before a primary data collection method will be used. That means that
questions will be formed to specifically address this particular research problem. According
to Aaker et.al (2009) the best suitable data collection method for a descriptive research is
through the use of surveys. Therefore a questionnaire format will be used as a data
collection method for this study.
4.4 Questionnaire Design
An important part of a quantitative research design is to form the questions so the study
will draw the best and most accurate results. There are three types of question formats to
35
choose from when preparing a questionnaire: open-ended, closed-ended and scaledresponse (Burns & Bush, 2009). According to Aaker et. al (2009) having a selfadministered questionnaire means that the researcher must reconcile to questions that can
be answered by ticking a box or circling a proper response from a set that the researcher has
prepared. With this in mind, the questionnaire will only contain closed-ended questions
and no opportunity will be given to express a certain opinion with open-ended questions.
There are nine steps involved in development of a questionnaire according to Crawford
(1997). These steps are:
1. Decide the information required.
2. Define the target respondents.
3. Choose the method(s) of reaching your target respondents.
4. Decide on question content.
5. Develop the question wording.
6. Put questions into a meaningful order and format.
7. Check the length of the questionnaire.
8. Pre-test the questionnaire.
9. Develop the final survey form.
When forming the questions for this study the researcher kept in mind these steps and
looked into previous research from the downsizing literature but questions were also
developed specifically for this study. The questionnaire was formed in cooperation with the
supervisor of this thesis and pretested on a group of individuals before it was sent out. The
questionnaire was available online for one week, from 13th of November to the 20th. No
reminders were sent out during that period.
Pretesting
Pretesting is an important part of the questionnaire design. When a questionnaire is formed
it is normally done by one person or maybe two and it is impossible to say if it is going to
achieve the desired results until it is tested as a full-scale survey. The goal of the pretesting
is to make sure that the questions are understood, they are placed in the best order, whether
additional information is needed or some questions should be eliminated (Crawford, 1997).
The questionnaire for this study was pretested on a group of ten individuals. The
36
individuals that took part in the pretesting phase were all currently employed and all of
them had some kind of experience with layoffs in their current or past workplace. They
registered the amount of time it took to finish the questionnaire and made comments while
recording their answers. There were few changes made and some of the questions were
eliminated and others put in. After this phase the questionnaire evolved into its final form.
Levels of measurement
Most marketing research defines four levels of measurement that is nominal, ordinal,
interval and ratio. It is important to choose the right scaling method for any given project
since the measurements directly affects the statistical techniques that will be used in
analyzing the results (Crawford, 1997). The first 6 questions in the questionnaire will be
used in order to categorize the respondents by layoff experience and these questions are
setup in multiple choice form involving ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers to expressing how deep
experience they have had with layoffs. These questions fall under the nominal scale. The
next category of questions contains only scaled-responses ranging from strongly agree (SA)
to strongly disagree (SD) on 5 point - Likert scale where strongly agree gets the value 1 and
strongly disagree gets the value 5. These questions fall under the interval scale. The final
part of the questionnaire covers the background information and in that part the participants
are categorized demographically according to various variables. All the questions in that
part are multiple choice questions except for one, which is the question of age. It was
decided that is was better to ask directly about age so it would be easier to calculate the
mean and work with these numbers and then later age was categorized. The background
questions all fall under the nominal scale.
Layoff contact experience. These questions were formed to measure the degree of contact
the participants had with layoffs and to separate victims from survivors and also to
distinguish those who have had no contact with layoffs in the past four years. This measure
contains five questions and four of them are derived from Grunberg´s, AndersonConnolly´s and Greenberg´s research on layoff survivors. These four questions ask
participants whether they had at any time in past four years (a) been laid off, (b) received a
warning notice that they might be laid off in the next round of downsizing, (c) had close
friends at the company and/or (d) coworkers laid off (Grunberg, Anderson-Connolly, &
37
Greenberg, 2000). These questions were adjusted to the current study but the bases of these
questions were formed in consideration with Grunberg´s et.al. previous research. The
researcher added the question about the frequency of layoffs in the past four years to better
classify the depth of the contact with layoffs. The first question in this category was made
especially for this study and its aim is to filter out those who have no experience with
layoffs. Those who had not been active in the labor market in the past four years did not
participate further in the study.
These questions will tell us how much experience the participants have had with layoffs
whether it is a personal experience involving dismissal from a workplace or witnessing the
layoff of a friend or coworker. The first five questions that constitute this measure are
viewable in the questionnaire that is available in Appendix A. Finally, those who had been
victims of layoffs were asked to state in what kind of industry they worked when the layoff
took place.
Sense of layoff justice. The questions that constitute this category are three. The first two
are derived from Grunberg´s, Anderson-Connolly´s and Greenberg´s research and asks the
respondents if they felt that the company acted fairly in choosing those who were let go in
the layoffs and secondly how well they felt the company treated those who were let go. The
questions were changed into statements and the respondents were asked to state their
opinion on the scale from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). The third question in
this category deals with how well the reasons for the layoffs were explained to the
employees. According to (Brockner, Grover, Reed, & Lee Dewitt, 1992) are survivors who
experience that the procedures used to implement the layoffs are done unfairly or ill
explained more likely to react negatively to the downsizing process.
Sense of guilt towards the layoff victims. This category is integrated with the layoff justice
category. The first question in this category asks if the participants have had good
friends/coworkers at the workplace that lost their jobs during layoffs. It has been suggested
that survivors that have formed friendship ties in the workplace and have had to witness
their friends or close coworkers forsake the workplace might feel guilty that they survived
the layoffs and angry if the layoffs are not executed fairly or the layoff victims are badly
treated (Gandolfi, 2008). The participants were asked if they have experienced guilt within
38
themselves because their coworkers or a friend at the workplace was laid off. This question
was formed especially for this study mainly because the literature review suggests that
these feelings are common among survivors. To verify if the participants experienced anger
towards the organization they were asked one question, put forward as a statement: I have
experienced anger towards the organization that laid off people that worked closed to me.
Together, the sense of layoff justice and sense of guilt for the layoff victims generate
survivor sickness number 2 but only the questions that are directly pointed at guilt will be
used to support or reject hypothesis 2.
Organizational commitment and satisfaction. To measure job satisfaction employees were
asked six questions. All of the questions in this category were taken from Grunberg´s,
Anderson-Connolly´s and Greenberg´s research except one and they are all presented as
statements. The statements were: all in all, I am very satisfied with my job; in general I
don´t like my job (reverse coded); in general I like working here: I would turn down
another job with more pay in order to stay with this company; I am proud to work for this
company. Two questions came from a previous Icelandic research conducted by Hlín
Kristbergdóttir, Leifur Geir Hafsteinsson and Arney Einarsdóttir (Hlín Kristbergsdóttir,
Leifur Geir Hafsteinsson, & Arney Einarsdóttir, 2008) that is: Most days I am excited
about my job and I feel like “one of the family” with the company I work for. The last
question states: I have wanted to change job in the past few years and was added to this
category on a hint from the group that pretested the questionnaire and thought that it would
be interesting to know how many people would have wanted to change jobs but did not.
Sense of perceived job insecurity. Previous studies have willingly concentrated on survivors
fear for job security and with good reason. Perceived job insecurity is directly connected to
unemployment and when survivors fear that they do not have any alternatives to change
jobs they might experience organization devotion (Kim, 2003). This means that survivors
who fear layoffs will show more organizational loyalty so they will not be next on the “list”
to leave. In this study employees were asked a few questions related to job security that
were taken from Wang-Bae Kim´s (2003) research on the socio-psychological impact of
downsizing on layoff survivors. The participants were asked to state their opinion on 5
questions that according to Kim (2003) measure perceived job insecurity. Participants were
39
asked to value their position within the company for the next 12 months although the
original questions measure few years ahead in time. The original questions were: (a) Do
you expect to be promoted within the next several years? (b) Do you expect your skills to be
useful 5 years from now? (c) What is level of confidence that your job will be necessary 6
months from now? In the current study these questions were changed into statements so
participants could scale them from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). Other
questions concerning job insecurity were taken from Brockner’s, Grover’s, Reed’s and
Dewitt’s (1992) research on the relationship between job insecurity associated with layoff
and the work effort of employees who survived the layoffs. To assess the perceived threat
of layoffs employees were asked three questions: (a) To what extent do you believe more
layoffs in the organization are likely to occur in the near future? (b) To what extent do you
believe that you will be laid off in the near future? To make sure that congruity was
throughout the questionnaire these questions were also put forward as statements. In the
third question participants were asked: Suppose you were laid off. If so, how well do you
think the assistance that management actually offered the laid off people would provide for
your needs? Responses ranged from very well (1) to not well at all (5). It is suggested that
survivors who stated low values to this scenario were unlikely to feel that the company
would provide for their needs in the aftermath of the downsizing and therefore their job
insecurity would be greater than of other respondents. All the questions concerning job
insecurity will be used to support or reject hypothesis 1.
Sense of envy towards layoff victims. This category is split up into two sets of questions.
The first three questions in this category are derived from the literature review. According
to Campbell – Jamison et.al. (2001) there are a few things that contribute to the envy of
survivors towards the layoff victims. Survivors are often faced with heavier workload
because the tasks that the laid off individuals performed were transferred to the surviving
employees and to verify that the participants were asked if they had to take on more work
due to layoffs in the company. Furthermore, it is suggested that the survivors might
experience that they do not feel lucky to have survived the layoffs and they might even
have preferred to be one of the laid off employees (Campbell-Jamison et al., 2001). To
verify if this could be the case, the employees were asked if they had experienced this
feeling. They were also asked if they considered those who were laid off lucky to be gone.
40
The second part of this category has to do with change in workload after downsizing. The
questions that form this category are taken from Grunberg´s, Anderson-Connolly´s and
Greenberg´s research that used the same questions to measure work overload. These
questions were put forward as statements like other questions in this study. The statements
were: I never seem to have enough time to get everything done; I have too much work to do
everything well; the amount of work I am asked to do is fair (reverse coded). There were
two questions in this questionnaire concerning the change in working hours. Participants
were asked if they believed that they had to work more hours on the job today than they did
before and also if they had to contribute more to their work today to finish the same amount
of work as they did before.
Control variables. To better assess the information from the participants they were asked a
few standard questions about age, gender, job position, education, time worked at the
company and whether the respondents has children under the age of 18 living at home.
The final questionnaire can be found in Appendix A but here below (table 5) is the final
construction of the questionnaire consisting of the variable measured, question – response
format and measurement levels of scales used. Note that the entire questionnaire was
conducted in Icelandic and then translated back to English.
41
Question
#
Construction/
variable
Question Response
Format
Measurement
Level of
Scale
Nominal
Interval- labeled
1-6
Layoff contact experience
Closed-ended
7-9
Sense of Layoff Justice
Scaled
10-12
Sense of guilt towards layoff victims
Scaled
13-15
Sense of envy towards layoff victims
Scaled
16-20
Sense of perceived job insecurity
Scaled
21
Sense of perceived job insecurity
Scaled
22-24
Sense of survivor syndrome
Organizational commitment and
satisfaction
Sense of envy towards layoff
victims/workload
Scaled
Interval- labeled
Scaled
Interval- labeled
Scaled
Interval- labeled
38
Demographic (Gender)
Closed-ended
Nominal
39
Demographic (Age)
Open-ended
Nominal
40
Demographic (children)
Closed-ended
Nominal
41
Demographic (education)
Closed-ended
Nominal
42
Job tenure
Closed-ended
Nominal
43
Organizational sector (profession)
Closed-ended
Nominal
44
Position
Closed-ended
Nominal
25-32
33-37
Interval- labeled
Interval- labeled
Interval- labeled
Interval- labeled
Table 5: Design of Final Questionnaire
After the questionnaire was finalized, a sample was needed to participate in the survey.
This research is focused on survivors of layoffs so it was important to get survivors to
participate but to be able to compare the behavior and experiences of the survivors it was
decided to let everyone participate in the survey and then victims and those who had no
previous lay-off experience were distinguished from the survivors. To get as diverse sample
as possible an unorthodox method was used to spread the questionnaire and get people to
participate. There has been a constant growth in using social media such as Facebook for
research purpose since its creation in 2004. Facebook has become a new playfield for social
scientists to explore their opportunities and observe behavior in a naturalistic setting and it
also has become a unique “place” to address participants from almost any country and
42
demographic group (Wilson, Gosling, & Graham, 2012). On October 4th it was announced
that Facebook had over 1 billion active users (Facebook, 2012). In Iceland alone there were
210.220 active Facebook users in December 2012 which accounts for 67.6% of the
population. Internet usage in Iceland is also very high, or 97.8% of the whole population
has access to the internet (Internet World Stats, 2011). Since the aim was to get people that
have been actively working in the past 4 years to participate in the survey the target group
was decided from the age of 20 to 64. In Iceland, the compulsory education ends at the age
of 16 and although a vast majority continues his/hers education in high school there is
always someone who starts working at the age of 16 (Ministry of Education, Science and
Culture, n.d.). This group might though be very small. In 2011, 55% of Facebook users
were 26 years of age or older worldwide (Ken Burabry, 2011) specific numbers for Iceland
could not be found but it is assumed that these numbers reflect the Icelandic Facebook
users. In collaboration with the instructor it was decided to aim for at least 300 people to
participate in the study. The reason for this number is that when the sample is divided into
three groups (survivors, victims, and no experience) it should have around 100 participants
in each group, according to Aaker et. al (2009) this is a good rule of thumb. The researcher
created an event on Facebook and invited every Icelandic friend to participate and these
people were then asked to invite their friends and so on, aiming for a snowballing effect.
Initially there were 281 people invited to participate but in the end the invitations were at
least 1000. Some invitation did go through e-mail since not everyone has a Facebook
account and those people were also asked to forward the questionnaire so it is impossible to
know how many individuals were exposed to study. This means that this study is based on
a convenience sample and the entire participants took part willingly.
Convenience sampling is well known among biologists because in field studies it is easier
to use this method than other methods. An important part to consider when using this
method is that numbers and results from this method cannot be used to generalize to the
population (Anderson, 2001). There is no debate about that it would be preferable to be
able to test the whole population or to be able to generalize to the population but in this
case it is impossible to include every individual. Using the convenience sampling methods
means that biases are possible, some individuals are left out that could be important to the
study and also, some individuals might be overrepresented (Riffe et.al, 2005).
43
4.5 Quality criteria
An important part of data collection is to manifest that the actual survey instrument is valid
and reliable to use. Validity means that the existing instrument that has been established by
the author is meaningful and measures what it is supposed to measure. Reliability in this
context looks for whether the results measures are consistent and stable. Furthermore,
reliability is also concerned with the measurements and if it is free of biases and unstable
errors (Cooper & Schindler, 2006). Quality of empirical research can be judged on few
things: content validity, predictive validity, construct validity and face validity and
reliability (Creswell, 2009). This current study was confronted with face validity and
reliability.
Face validity refers to obviousness of the survey or if the test seems to measure what it is
intended to measure. This means that it has not proven to work but the intentions are valid
(Aaker et al., 2004). Face validity was establish in this study by contacting the supervisor,
Katrín Ólafsdóttir, and Arney Einarsdóttir, lektor at Reykjavík University to comment on
the representativeness and quality of the questionnaire. There were some structural changes
made in form of congruity, wording and length of the questionnaire. Before the final
version of the questionnaire was ready it was tested on a group who gave good and
wholesome criticism to the benefit of the questionnaire concerning layout and convenience.
Reliability appears to not as important than validity but it is easier to measure and generally
receives more attention. The most basic method for establishing reliability is to ensure that
the measures provide stability over time or internal consistency. This can be done by
repeating the measurement with the same method and the same target group more than once
and correlating for the results (Aaker et al., 2004). Since this study has not been done
before there is no previous sample to compare with. The questions in the questionnaire
have almost all been used before in international research and here in Iceland which means
that other people have already been exposed to the questions in other studies.
44
5
Data presentation
The aim of chapter five is to present the data that were collected from the online
questionnaire, concerning employees in the Icelandic labor market. This particular data
will be analyzed in terms of demographic factors and experience with layoffs.
5.1 Response rate
There were 471 individuals that viewed the online questionnaire, 411 that started to answer
the questions and 333 that completed it which results in 81% completion rate. There are
always people who drop out after starting online surveys and to keep consistency
throughout the questions it was decided to use only the completion rate, to be precise,
answers from 333 individuals were used to reach a conclusion in this study. Table 6 shows
a description of response rate for this survey. Since this is a convenience sample the results
will not reflect the population but it might give implications about how survivors
experienced layoffs in the wake of the economic meltdown in 2008.
Frequency Percentage
Viewed
Started
Completed
Drop Outs
471
411
333
78
81%
19%
Table 6: Response rate
5.2 Demographic structure of respondents
There were 323 that answered the question about their gender and from that number 86
men completed the questionnaire and 237 women. The average age of respondents was 43
years but the age bracket was rather wide, ranging from 19 years the youngest to 66 years
the oldest. The most common age was 34 years, those who were born in 1978. The
respondents were asked directly about their age but to make statistical analysis it was
decided to group the respondents according to their age into 10 groups. Table 7 reveals the
gender and age distribution along with the status of children in the household. From this
table it is clear that most respondents are female, in the age from 26 - 45 and have children
living in their homes. Table 7 also reveals the education, job tenure and organizational
position of the respondents. The most common education is an undergraduate university
degree, most of the respondents have been working in their current workplace for four
years or more and specialist is the most frequent position among the participants. Two
45
adjustments were made to the demographic classification of respondents. In the education
category there were only 4 respondents (1.2%) with doctorate degree and since it is difficult
to do statistical analysis with such few cases the answers from these respondents were
moved to the category above (University/postgraduate). In the organizational position
category, only 13 (4%) answered with “other” and they were moved to the category above
(general employee). This will make statistical calculation easier.
Variable
Gender
Age
Children
Education
Job tenure
Organizational
Position
Classification of variable
Female
Male
20 and under
21 to 25
26 to 30
31 to 35
36 to 40
41 to 45
46 to 50
51 to 55
56 to 60
61 and over
Yes
No
Elementary/primary school
Trade school
Collage
University/undergraduate
University/postgraduate
Other education
1 year or less
1-2 years
2-3 years
3-4 years
4 years or more
I am currently not working
Supervisor
Manager
Specialist
General employee
NA
Table 7: Demographic profile of respondents
46
Count
86
237
5
10
37
114
47
32
25
24
13
11
202
116
34
21
43
108
103
13
54
35
28
24
154
27
28
48
103
111
31
Valid
Percentage
26,6%
73,4%
1,6%
3,1%
11,6%
35,8%
14,8%
10,1%
7,9%
7,5%
4,1%
3,5%
63,5%
36,5%
10,6%
6,5%
13,4%
33,5%
32,0%
4,0%
16,8%
10,9%
8,7%
7,5%
47,8%
8,4%
8,7%
15,0%
32,1%
34,6%
9,7%
In the demographic variable Organizational position there was a small change done
afterwards, that is everyone that replied with other (NA) were move to category above. This
was done to decrease the number of categories and to make analyzes simpler. Table 8,
gives a better picture of how the positions are divided between genders.
General
Supervisor Manager Specialist employee
Men
Women
17,8%
7,0%
23,3%
14,5%
35,6%
35,5%
23,3%
43,0%
Table 8: Organizational position analyzed between genders
In the table above we can see that men are in majority of those who fulfill a supervisory
and manager’s positions while women tend to be general employees in their workplace.
Concerning job tenure, both genders had similar answers and majority of both groups had
worked in their current workplace for 4 years or longer. The most common education for
both genders was an undergraduate and postgraduate university degree.
Respondents were asked in which sector the company that they are currently working for is
operating. This question was conducted so it could be possible to compare answers from
the participants across sectors, if necessary. Figure 10 shows the different operating sectors
of participants’ current workplace.
Agriculture, fishery
Banking, insurance or other financial…
Commerce and service
Construction
Distribution systems
Education
Health care
Information and technology
On a maternity leave
Other
Other kind of industry than mentioned above
Other public service
Production company
Public service
Public transport
Student
Unemployed
0%
Figure 10: In which sector operates the company that you work for?
47
5%
10%
15%
According to these numbers, most participants are currently working in the education sector
and bank/financial institutions but all in all they are distributed all over the sectors. Those
who answered with “other” were currently working in large-scale industry, media,
consultant agency, tourism, oil company, slaughterhouse and dance school. In the next
section participants layoff experience will be analyzed along with further categorization of
victims, survivors and those who have no experience with layoffs.
5.3 Layoff contact experience
This part of the survey was designed to measure the degree of contact the participants have
had with layoffs. The first two questions required an answer and their purpose was to
screen out those who had not been active in the labor market in the past 4 years. These
respondents were asked to discontinue the survey and were thanked for their participation,
they amounted to 10 people. Those who had not been employed with a company that had to
lay off people in the past four years (answered question one with no) were automatically
transferred to the second part of questionnaire that applied to their current job because they
were labeled with no experience with layoffs in this study. Those who answered the first
question with yes were the only ones that were exposed to the entire questionnaire, since
they had previous experience with layoffs. This group was then split into survivors on one
hand and victims on the other hand, in question 2. In total there were 323 individuals (N =
323) that were either a victim, survivor or had no experience with layoffs. Figure 11 reveals
the percentage of these groups.
Victims
21,36%
Victims
No experience
with layoffs
38,08%
Survivors
No experience with
layoffs
Survivors
40,56%
Figure 11: Distribution of participants
48
When looking closer at these numbers we can see that women with no experience with
layoffs are the largest group. Women exceed men in all groups only because they are in
majority of respondents but survivors are the largest group of all the participants. Figure 12
shows how the total number of respondents is distributed between the three groups and also
between genders.
32,8%
35%
30%
26,6%
25%
20%
14,4%
15%
14,4%
7,2%
10%
4,7%
5%
0%
Survivors
Victims
Men
No experience
Women
Figure 12: Distribution of participants between genders
To better understand the profile of the three groups (survivors, victims and those with no
experience with layoffs) the information about their gender, age and whether they have
children under the age of 18 living with them has been summed up in table 9. In this
categorization 3 values were missing and therefore the total valid replies were 320.
Variable
Classification
of variable
Survivors
No experience with
layoffs
Victims
Frequency
Percentage
Frequency
Percentage
Frequency
Percentage
46
85
0
2
14
50
16
12
12
8
8
6
80
14,4%
26,6%
0,0%
0,6%
4,4%
15,9%
5,1%
3,8%
3,8%
2,5%
2,5%
1,9%
25,4%
23
46
2
0
3
26
11
12
5
3
4
1
38
7,2%
14,4%
0,6%
0,0%
1,0%
8,3%
3,5%
3,8%
1,6%
1,0%
1,3%
0,3%
12,1%
15
105
3
8
19
37
19
8
8
13
4
1
82
4,7%
32,8%
1,0%
2,5%
6,0%
11,7%
6,0%
2,5%
2,5%
4,1%
1,3%
0,3%
26,0%
49
15,6%
31
No
Table 9: Demographic profile of respondents divided by groups
9,8%
35
11,1%
Gender
Male
Female
20 and under
21 to 25
26 to 30
31 to 35
Age
36 to 40
41 to 45
46 to 50
51 to 55
56 to 60
61 and over
Children
Yes
49
The victims were also asked to state how often they were laid off in the past 4 years. Of
those who were laid off, vast majority or 81.2% had been laid off once. Since there were so
few that had been laid off twice or more often (7 individuals, 6.5%) it was decided to put
them all together in one group with the ones that had been laid off once. Question 3 was
only directed to those who had been laid off and asked about the industry the company that
laid the individual off was operating in. Figure 13 shows that most laid off victims come
from the banking/insurance industry or other financial institutions (41.7%). Those who
answered with “other” came from a car-dealership, media, contractor-company and a
museum. Although, most layoffs were in construction in 2008 – 2011 no participant in this
study is a laid off employee from a construction company. The reason might be that the
researcher knows many people that worked in bank industry and they are likely to have
answered the questionnaire due to familiarity with the researcher.
Agriculture, fishery
2,8%
Banking, insurance or other financial…
Commerce and service
9,7%
Distribution systems
1,4%
Education
4,2%
Information and technology
11,1%
Other kind of industry than mentioned…
8,3%
Other public service
1,4%
Other, define
13,9%
Production company
2,8%
Public transport
2,8%
0,0%
10,0%
20,0%
41,7%
30,0%
40,0%
50,0%
Figure 13: If you have been laid off, in what kind of industry did you work at that time?
To get a better sense of layoff contact experience, participants were asked if layoffs had
occurred in their company and also if they had co-workers who lost their jobs. Of those
who answered these questions vast majority or 86.53% had survived some kind of layoffs
in their company and only 13.5% said that no layoffs had occurred in their company. Over
40% had also experienced layoffs of 10 coworkers or more which indicates that there were
group-layoffs taking place but almost 39% had not experienced layoffs within their own
department. Figures 14 and 15 show the results for these two questions.
50
60%
50%
Layoffs within the company
Layoffs within a department
50%
44,0%
40,4%
40%
40%
26,9%
30%
20%
60%
15,5%
38,9%
30%
13,5%
20%
10,4%
10%
10,4%
10%
0%
Yes, 1-4% Yes, 510%
Yes, >
10%
No
0%
Yes, 2-4
Figure 14: Percentage of layoffs within a company
Yes, 5-9 Yes, > 10
No
Figure 15: Number of layoffs of co-workers
Participants were also asked if they had at any point in the past four years received a warn
notice that they might be laid off in next round of layoffs. It is assumed that receiving a
warn notice or other personal contact with layoffs might increase job insecurity (Brockner
et.al, 1987) and that will be analyzed in chapter 6.
Warn notices about possible layoffs
14,6%
Yes
No
85,4%
Figure 16: Have you received a warn notice that you might get laid off?
Like figure 16 shows, warn notices about a possible layoffs are not common among
employees and only 14.6% (29 individuals) of those who answered this question had
received such notice. These questions that formed chapter five were set forward to make a
good profile of the respondents and how much experience they have with layoffs. They will
be used in the next chapter to compare answers form survivors, victims and those with no
experience to layoffs.
51
6
Analysis
In chapter six the demographic factors, which were laid out in chapter five, will be
analyzed in correlation with the survivor sickness and demonstrated with the conceptual
framework in figure 10. Responses from all the participants will be analyzed accordingly.
Each survivor sickness will be analyzed and the hypotheses that were presented will be
dealt with.
6.1 Introduction
There were three hypotheses put forward in the beginning of this thesis in correlation with a
research question. A study was conducted to explore the behavior and attitudes of survivors
of layoffs among Icelanders in the labor market. In this section the data from this study will
be revealed and split into three parts according to the hypothesis. In general, the data will
be analyzed with the demographic variable gender and also between victims and survivors
to differentiate the answers from the survivors. Other demographic variables will be used to
further analyze the answers.
6.1.1
Visual presentation
Tables and figures are used to show results of the questions with the applicable
demographic factor. In the visual presentation, all the answers have been adjusted in that
way that those who did not want to answer or thought the question was not applicable to
them (NA) were removed and the total number of answers then reduced. Mean, Variance
and standard deviation for each question will be stated and Chi-Square tests (χ2) were used
to verify significance and they will reflect the total answers for each question. Questions
that showed statistical significance did so with either 90% or 95% level of significance, α =
0.1 or α = 0.05.
6.2 Sickness 1
Hypothesis 1: Survivors will have experienced job insecurity
Sense of perceived job insecurity
Job security is not as natural as it was many years ago when the psychological contract had
a different meaning than it does today. Job security is very important for most people
because it can be directly related to unemployment (Kim, 2003). In the present study
participants were asked 5 questions concerning job security at their current workplace. The
first 3 questions came from Kim’s (2003) research on the impact of downsizing on layoff
52
survivors where job insecurity gets an important part. In Kim’s research job security was
measured before and after downsizing and the results were such that job insecurity
increased after the downsizing had taken place. In the current study it is not possible to
measure the effect before and after downsizing so difference between genders and between
the three groups will be explored. Then it is possible to see if those who survived layoffs
have different attitudes towards job insecurity. First, table 10 shows the valid number of
answers (N), mean, standard deviation and variance for this category of questions.
Q16 - Q21
N
I expect that I will be promoted/ have career
opportunities within the next 12 months
I expect that my skills will be useful to the
company in the next 12 months
I am confident that the company will need me as
an employee in the next 12 months
I feel it is unlikely that the company I work for
will resort to layoffs in the next 12 months
I feel it is unlikely that I will be laid off in the
next 12 months
Suppose you were laid off. If so, how well do
you think the assistance that management
actually offered the laid off people would
provide for your needs?
Mean
St.dev
Variance
322
3,10
1,32
1,75
322
1,52
0,77
0,60
322
1,50
0,72
0,52
320
2,13
1,12
1,26
322
1,65
0,85
0,73
321
2,81
1,67
2,80
Table 10: Job insecurity, statistical analyzes of questions 16 - 21
For the first question, the most common answer was “neutral” wherein 28.2% of the
participants answered that they neither “agreed” nor “disagreed” with this question. When
the answers from the survivors are analyzed separately, it shows that their most common
answer is also “neutral” (27.4%). 35.9% of the survivors “strongly agreed” and “agreed”
with this question and 36.7% “strongly disagreed” and “disagreed”, making this question
well distributed between all the response options. The answers from the victims were also
well distributed between the response options and their most common answer was
“neutral”. The difference for this question between these two groups was not significant
(p=0.577) (χ2= 2,888). If this statement is looked at divided by gender, men tend to “agree”
or “strongly agree” in 42.9% of the cases while women do the same in 32.2% of the cases.
Women tend to “disagree” or “strongly disagree” more often or in 40.9% of the cases and
men in 27.1% of the cases. Table 11 shows how the answers are divided between the
genders.
53
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
21,4%
10,2%
Agree
21,4%
22,0%
Neutral
30,0%
27,8%
Strongly
disagree
14,3%
23,4%
Disagree
12,9%
16,6%
Table 11: Expected career opportunities/promotion within the next 12 months
The difference between the genders is however barely not significant with 90% level of
confidence (p=0.107) (χ2= 7,607).
In the second question the participants were asked about their skills being useful to the
company, there was a very high ratio for “agreeing” or “strongly agreeing” with the
statement among all participants. Of those who took a stand in this statement 91.5%
strongly agree or agree with it. When the answers from only the survivors were analyzed, it
showed that their most common answer was “strongly agree” (60.7%) and 31.1% “agree”
with this statement. The victims do “strongly agree” in 47.2% of the cases and “agree” in
45.3% of the cases. Table 12 shows the difference in answers from the victims and the
survivors for this question.
Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
47,2%
60,7%
Agree
45,3%
31,1%
Neutral
5,7%
6,6%
Disagree
0,0%
1,6%
Strongly
disagree
1,9%
0,0%
Table 12: I expect that my skills will be useful to the company in the next 12 months
The difference between victims and survivors is not significant (p=0.165) (χ2=6,490).
Looking at this statement divided by genders reveals that 63.3% of women “strongly agree”
with this statement and 50.7% of men. Men tend to be more “neutral” than women (13.7%
vs. 3.7%). Table 13 here below shows the difference in answers among men and women.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
50,7%
63,3%
Agree
32,9%
30,7%
Neutral
13,7%
3,7%
Disagree
0,0%
1,4%
Strongly
disagree
2,7%
,9%
Table 13: I expect that my skills will be useful to the company in the next 12 months
The difference between men and women is significant at 95% level of confidence
(p=0.013) (χ2=12,746). Although these numbers indicate that both the men and women are
confident about their skills being useful in the next 12 months women tend experience that
54
more than men and the difference is significant. This could mean that women feel that they
are important employees in their workplace and their skills on the job are useful to the
company/organization. In Kim’s (2003) research questions one and two showed a negative
correlation, meaning that after downsizing the respondents’ expectation for career
advancement and assessment of personal skills value declined. This suggested that
survivors tend to concede their hopes for advancement and promotion after layoffs have
taken place in the workplace, this could possibly indicate that participants may feel at risk
of losing their jobs in the future. Note that Kim’s research asked about next several years
not the next 12 months like was done in the current study.
The third question in this category asked if the participants believed that the company they
work for would need them as employees in the next 12 months. This question also showed
a very high correlation with “strongly agree” and “agree” whereas 93.5% of those who took
a stand in this statement either “strongly agreed” (59.9%) or “agreed” (33.7%) with it.
When the answers from the survivors are analyzed, it shows that their most common
answer is “strongly agree” (62.3%) and 32.8% also “agree” with his statement. This tells us
that 95.1% of survivors are confident that the company they work for will need them as
employees in the next 12 months. The victims however “strongly agree” in 41.8% of the
cases and they tend to disagree more frequently than the survivors (5.5% vs. 0%). Table 14
here below shows the answers from the victims and the survivors.
Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
41,8%
62,3%
Agree
45,5%
32,8%
Neutral
5,5%
4,1%
Disagree
5,5%
0,0%
Strongly
disagree
1,8%
0,8%
Table 14: I am confident that the company will need me as an employee in the next 12 months
This difference is significant with 95% level of confidence (p=0.020) (χ2=11,642). This
could indicate that the victims still fear layoffs more than survivors because they have gone
through this process personally before and they know the feeling. It could be that they are
more vulnerable towards layoffs and still keep the memory of a previous layoff with them.
These results also indicate that the survivors are feeling more secure about their position
within the company they work for than the victims. If we look at this statement divided by
gender, 53.4% of men “strongly agree” with it and 38.4% “agree” which amounts to 91.8%.
Furthermore, 61.5% of women “strongly agree” and 32.6% “agree” with this statement
55
which amounts to 94%. Table 15 shows the answers from men and women for this
question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
53,4%
61,5%
Agree
38,4%
32,6%
Neutral
6,8%
3,7%
Disagree
0,0%
1,4%
Strongly
disagree
1,4%
,9%
Table 15: I am confident that the company will need me as an employee in the next 12 months
The difference between the genders is however not significant (p=0.480) (χ2=3,484). This
indicates that both men and women feel secure that the company they work for will need
them as employees in the next 12 months. In Kim’s (2003) research this question did not
reveal any difference in perception before and after the layoffs.
The fourth question in this category is derived from Brockner’s (1992) research on job
insecurity and asks the participants if they feel it is likely that the company they work for
will resort to layoffs in the next 12 months. In Brockner’s research, job insecurity is
assessed as a perceived threat and it is analyzed in change to work effort. In the current
study the question was used mainly to assess how the participant perceived the likeliness of
future layoffs and then in the fifth question for this category the participants were asked to
assess how likely they feel that they themselves will keep their job in the next 12 months.
Regarding question four, of those who took a stand in this question over 66% do not
believe that the company they work for will resort to layoffs in the next 12 months. When
the answers from the survivors are analyzed, it shows that their most common answer is
“agree” (32%). The replies for this question are well distributed between the response
options. 25.4% of the survivors “strongly agree” and 32% “agree”, 24.6% are “neutral” in
their answers and 18% “disagree” and “strongly disagree” with this statement. The answers
from the victims are similar to the survivors although they tend to “strongly agree” (34.6%)
more frequently than the survivors. Table 16 shows the answers from both the victims and
the survivors.
Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
34,6%
25,4%
Agree
25,0%
32,0%
Neutral Disagree
25,0%
13,5%
24,6%
13,9%
Table 16: Possible layoffs in the company in the next 12 months
56
Strongly
disagree
1,9%
4,1%
The difference between these two groups is not significant (p=0.699) (χ2=2,198). Analyzing
this question between genders revealed that 39.6% of women “strongly agree” with this
statement against 29.2% of men. Table 17 shows the answers from men and women for this
question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
29,2%
39,6%
Agree
33,3%
27,2%
Neutral Disagree
25,0%
9,7%
19,4%
10,6%
Strongly
disagree
2,8%
3,2%
Table 17: Possible layoffs in the company in the next 12 months
The difference between men and women for this question is not significant (p=0.523)
(χ2=3,214).
The fifth question in the job insecurity category faces the opinion the respondents have
about their own security in the workplace. Of those who took a stand in this question,
majority of respondents “strongly agree” with this statement (53.6%) and together with the
agree choice it is safe to say that respondents are confident that they will not be laid off in
the next 12 months, because 86.6% either “strongly agree” or “agree” with this statement.
50% of survivors “strongly agree” with this statement and 35.2% “agree” which means that
85.2% of survivors are very confident that they will not be laid off in the next 12 months.
Also, 86.6% of the victims either “strongly agree” or “agree” which indicates that both
groups are confident they will not lose their jobs within the next 12 months. Table 18
shows the answers from both the victims and the survivors.
Victims
Strongly
agree
40,4%
Agree
46,2%
Survivors
50,0%
35,2%
Strongly
Neutral Disagree disagree
7,7%
3,8%
1,9%
12,3%
,8%
1,6%
Table 18: Possible personal layoffs in the next 12 months
The difference between these groups is not significant (p=0.342) (χ2=4,503).
Over 86% of women “strongly agree” and “agree” with this statement and 87.5% of men,
which indicates that a vast majority of both men and women do not fear personal layoffs in
the next 12 months. Table 19 shows the answers from men and women for this question.
57
Men
Strongly
agree
43,1%
Agree
44,4%
Women
56,5%
29,6%
Neutral Disagree
8,3%
2,8%
11,1%
,9%
Strongly
disagree
1,4%
1,9%
Table 19: Possible personal layoffs in the next 12 months
The difference between men and women is not significant (p=0.126) (χ2=7,188). This
question was also analyzed with age, children and job tenure but no significant difference
was visible.
The final question in the job insecurity category is also derived from Brockner’s research.
With this question Brockner was aiming for perceived control which is influenced by
survivors belief that they or the company that they work for can take some action to help
them deal with the negative impact that stem from job loss (Brockner et al., 1992). It was
suggested that those who showed low values in response to this question were unlikely to
feel that the company would assist them or take action to help them cope with possible job
loss and therefore job insecurity would be greater. In the current study respondents were
asked the exact same question as in Brockner’s study, with the response possibilities
ranging from very much (1) to not at all (5). The result for this question reveals that most
respondents believe that the management would provide well for their needs if layoffs
would occur because 25.1% of those who took a stand in this statement answer „very
much“ and 43.4% answer „much“. The survivors also generally say “very much” (29.1%)
and “much” (36.8) to this statement and only 1.7% say “little”. The victims are not as
convinced that their needs would be provided for because 40% of the victims are “neutral”
in their replies but 36% say “much”. Only 12% answer with “very much” and 6% answer
with “not at all”. Table 20 shows the answers from the victims and the survivors for the
following question: Suppose you were laid off. If so, how well do you think the assistance
that management actually offered the laid off people would provide for your needs?
Victims
Survivors
Very
much
12%
29%
Much
36%
37%
Neutral
40%
25%
Little
6%
8%
Not at
all
6%
2%
Table 20: Perceived assistance from management if layoffs occur
The difference between the groups is significant with 90% level of confidence (p=0.054)
(χ2=9,319). This indicates that the victims, who already have experienced layoffs, feel that
58
that the assistance that the management would offer them, if layoffs would occur, would
not provide as well for their needs as the survivors feel about this question. The reason
might be that the victims have already experienced layoffs and therefore they know how the
previous employer/management team provided for their needs at that time and most likely
they have that in mind when answering this question. When the answers are analyzed by
gender, there is very little difference in replies from men and women. Table 21 shows the
answers from men and women.
Men
Women
Very
much
23,9%
25,6%
Much
43,7%
43,1%
Neutral
22,5%
24,1%
Little
7,0%
5,1%
Not at
all
2,8%
2,1%
Table 21: Perceived assistance from management if layoffs occur
The difference is between the genders is not significant (p=0.964) (χ2=0.591).
The literature review suggested that men might experience more job insecurity because
they often feel more like “the head of the family” than women and therefore more
threatened by possible job loss (Naswall & De Witte, 2003). There was only one question
regarding job insecurity that revealed a difference between the genders and therefore is it
not possible to make the assumption that men experience more job insecurity in their
workplace than women. It was also suggested that age could be a significant factor when
dealing with job insecurity. The questions concerning job insecurity were cross-examined
with the demographic variable age to verify if significant difference could be found
between ages of the participants. Analyzes revealed that significant difference could only
be found with one question, namely the first question in this category that asked if the
participants believed that they would be promoted or have career opportunities within the
next 12 months. The answers for this question reveal that older people tend do “strongly
disagree” and “disagree” more frequently than the younger people but these results are not
surprising since generally they are ones that will soon be ending their working career and
therefore not expecting that they will be having further career opportunities. The difference
is significant with 95% level of confidence (p=0.002) (χ2=66,371). Here below in table 22
are the answers for this question divided between age groups. Other questions analyzed
with age did not reveal any significant difference so according to these result it is not
possible to say that age is a determinant factor concerning job insecurity.
59
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
0%
12,5%
20,0%
19,6%
9,3%
3,6%
17,4%
4,8%
8,3%
0%
0%
0%
26,7%
21,7%
27,9%
32,1%
30,4%
4,8%
16,7%
10,0%
80,0%
62,5%
23,3%
18,5%
34,9%
39,3%
21,7%
42,9%
8,3%
20,0%
0%
0%
6,7%
21,7%
16,3%
7,1%
17,4%
14,3%
0%
40,0%
20,0%
25,0%
23,3%
18,5%
11,6%
17,9%
13,0%
33,3%
66,7%
30,0%
<20
21-25
26-30
31-35
36-40
41-45
46-50
51-55
56-60
>61
Table 22: Expected career opportunities/promotion within the next 12 months
All the questions concerning job insecurity were also cross analyzed with the question that
asked whether or not the respondents had in any time received a warn notice that they
might by laid off if the company had to resort to layoffs. No significant results came from
that analyzes so it might indicate that receiving a warning notice does not affect job
insecurity. Note that the sample is really small for those who had received a warn notice.
All the questions concerning job insecurity were then analyzed between victims, survivors
and those who had no experience with layoffs to get a better feeling of how job insecurity
affects those who have been laid off before and those who survived layoffs. All the
questions concerning job insecurity were cross examined between the three groups and
three of those questions showed significant difference between the groups at 95% level of
significance (α=0.05). Table 23 shows the answers that did reveal a significant difference
from the groups.
Question
18
Question
19
Question
21
Victims
Survivors
No experience
Victims
Survivors
No experience
Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
41,8%
62,3%
64,9%
34,6%
25,4%
50,4%
12,0%
29,1%
Agree
45,5%
32,8%
29,8%
25,0%
32,0%
27,0%
36,0%
36,8%
Neutral
5,5%
4,1%
4,4%
25,0%
24,6%
14,8%
40,0%
24,8%
Disagree
5,5%
0,0%
0,0%
13,5%
13,9%
5,2%
6,0%
7,7%
Strongly
disagree
1,8%
,8%
,9%
1,9%
4,1%
2,6%
6,0%
1,7%
No experience
27,3%
54,5%
14,1%
3,0%
1,0%
Table 23: Job insecurity, analyzed between the three groups.
60
P
value
0.01
0.01
0.02
For question 18, I am confident that the company will need me as an employee in the next
12 months, both survivors and those with no experience seem to “strongly agree” most
frequently, the victims are more distributed between “strongly agree” and “agree” which
could mean that they do not feel as confident in their workplaces as the other two groups.
The value for Pearson Chi-Square is 19,814 for this question and the p-value is 0.01. Figure
17 shows the difference between the groups for question 18 better.
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
65%
62%
42%
45%
33%
5% 5%
30%
4%
2%
Victims
4%
1%
Survivors
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
1%
No experience
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Figure 17: Confidence that the company will need me as an employee
Question 19 states I believe that it is unlikely that more layoffs will occur in the
organization in the next 12 months. The results show that those who have no experience
with layoffs “strongly agree” more frequently than the other groups, the reason might be
that this group works in industries that have not had to lay off people despite the crisis and
the employees feel that will not change in the nearest future. The value for Pearson ChiSquare is 19,814 and the p-value is 0.01 for this question. Figure 18 shows the difference
between the groups for this question better.
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
50%
35%
32%
25%
25%
25%
27%
25%
15%
14%
13%
Victims
Strongly agree
5% 3%
4%
2%
Survivors
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Figure 18: Perceived likelihood that more layoffs will occur in the organization
61
No experience
Strongly disagree
Question 21 states, Suppose you were laid off. If so, how well do you think the assistance
that management actually offered the laid off people would provide for your needs? The
results for this question reveal that the victims show much less tendency to choose “Very
much” than the other groups. The value for Pearson Chi-Square was 24,503 and the p-value
is 0.02 for this question. Figure 19 shows the difference between the groups for question 21
better.
60%
55%
50%
36%
40%
40%
37%
29%
30%
20%
27%
25%
14%
12%
8%
6% 6%
10%
3% 1%
2%
0%
Victims
Very much
Survivors
Much
Neutral
No experience
Little
Not at all
Figure 19: Perceived assistance from management if layoffs will occur in your workplace
Those with no experience with layoffs tend to choose „much“ most frequently. The victims
however show that they are the ones that “disagree” and “strongly disagree” the most when
computed together, although the difference for “strongly disagreeing” and “disagreeing”
between the groups is not significant it might be possible that the victims have the worst
experience with layoffs and therefore not as convinced that the management would provide
well for their needs.
Finally, job insecurity was analyzed by the respondents’ companies operating industry to
verify the answers from the respondents differ across sectors. Of the six questions asked
only one of them showed a significant difference and that was question 19 that stated I feel
it is unlikely that the company I work for will resort to layoffs in the next 12 months
(p=0.00) (χ2= 95,379). The most common answer was “strongly agree” for this question but
those who “strongly agree” the most come from the public transport industry, education,
commerce/service and health care industry which means that the employees from these
industries do not fear layoffs within their company/organization in the next 12 months.
62
Those who “strongly disagree” were very few but there was a visible difference in the
answers for “disagree” were bank employees disagreed the most and those in the
information and technology industries. This is interesting especially since layoffs have been
profound in these industries in the past few years so there is a possibility that current
employees within these sectors still fear more layoffs in the future. Table 24 shows the
difference for question 19 between sectors.
Agriculture, fishery
Construction
Information and technology
Education
Health care
Public service (Municipalities and
public agencies.)
Other public service
Commerce and service
Public transport
Banking, insurance or other financial
institutions
Production company
Other kind of industry than mentioned
above
Strongly
agree
33,3%
25,0%
25,9%
60,5%
48,3%
Agree
22,2%
0,0%
37,0%
14,0%
20,7%
Neutral
22,2%
75,0%
22,2%
14,0%
31,0%
Disagree
22,2%
0,0%
14,8%
7,0%
0,0%
Strongly
disagree
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
4,7%
0,0%
23,1%
48,4%
50,0%
62,5%
46,2%
45,2%
22,7%
25,0%
23,1%
3,2%
22,7%
0,0%
7,7%
3,2%
4,5%
12,5%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
5,4%
15,0%
27,0%
40,0%
29,7%
40,0%
32,4%
5,0%
5,4%
0,0%
26,1%
43,5%
13,0%
13,0%
4,3%
Table 24: Possible layoffs in the company in the next 12 months
This concludes the part that is only connected to job insecurity and hypothesis number one.
The questions about job insecurity have been examined with few variables and the results
and the discussion for the hypothesis related to survivor sickness number one will be dealt
with in chapter seven.
Other factors of the survivor sickness number one are decreased moral, lack of trust
towards the organization/management and then job satisfaction and commitment. The
results concerning the questions for these factors will now be analyzed.
Sense of survivor syndrome
There were two symptoms that made up the survivor syndrome and are therefore part of
survivor sickness one, namely lack of trust and morale at the workplace. The literature
review reflects commonly on these issues as one symptom of the survivor syndrome can be
in the form of decreased level of morale in the workplace and trust towards management
63
(Cascio, 1993; Kinnie et al., 1998). In the current study participants were asked to state
their opinion regarding these factors in their current workplace. The aim was to get a
general picture of how survivors experience trust and moral in their current jobs compared
to how it was after the economic crisis in 2008. First, table 25 shows the valid number of
answers (N), mean, standard deviation and variance for the three questions that constitute
this category.
Q22 - Q24
I have experienced increased lack of trust towards
my supervisors recently than I did ca. 4 years ago
I have experienced increased lack of trust towards
the company I work for recently than I did ca. 4
years ago
I believe that the morale at my workplace is worse
today than it was ca. 4 years ago
N
Mean
St.dev
Variance
323
3,38
1,36
1,85
323
3,44
1,28
1,65
323
3,29
1,36
1,85
Table 25: Survivor syndrome, statistical analyzes of questions 22-24
The first question in this category asks about trust towards supervisors and the respondents
generally “strongly disagree” with it, of those who took a stand in this question 30.2%
“strongly disagree” but 21.7% are “neutral”. This question was also analyzed between men
and women and the results show that women tend to “strongly disagree” (32.1%) more
frequently than men (26.2%) while men tend to be more “neutral” than women in this sense
because while men answered with “neutral” in 30.8% of the cases women only did the
same in 18.4% of the cases. Table 26 shows the answers from men and women for the first
question in this category.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
9,2%
10,0%
20,0%
21,1%
30,8%
18,4%
13,8%
18,4%
26,2%
32,1%
Table 26: Lack of trust towards my supervisors
The difference between genders in this question is however not significant (p=0.328)
(χ2=4,627). This question was also analyzed in relation to only survivors and they tend to
“strongly disagree” and be “neutral” equally (26.1%) and they “agree” in 23.5% of the
cases. To better analyze the survivors they were compared to the victims but the difference
in their replies is not significant (p=0.647) (χ2=2,490). The victims however tend to
“strongly agree” more frequently than the survivors. Figure 20 here below shows the
answers from the victims and the survivors for this question.
64
35,0%
30,0%
28,9%
26,1%
26,1%
22,2% 23,5%
25,0%
20,0%
17,8%
15,6%
15,6% 15,7%
15,0%
Victims
Survivors
8,7%
10,0%
5,0%
0,0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
Figure 20: Lack of trust towards my supervisors
Question two in this category was very similar to the first one except respondents were
asked about lack of trust towards the company the work for but not the supervisors. The
results were very similar to the first question. Of those who took a stand in this question
most respondents “strongly disagree” with this statement (27.8%). Women tend to strongly
disagree (29.3%) while men tend to be more “neutral” regarding this statement (32.3%).
Table 27 shows the answers from men and women for this question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
Agree
Strongly
Neutral Disagree disagree
10,8%
8,4%
9,2%
16,8%
32,3%
23,6%
23,1%
22,0%
24,6%
29,3%
Table 27: Lack of trust towards the company
The difference between the genders is not significant (p=0.405) (χ2=4,005). This question
was also analyzed in relation to survivors and when they are laid out with the victims’
answers they showed very similar results as the first question in this category. The
difference between victims and survivors is however not significant (p=0.837) (χ2=1,441).
Figure 21 here below shows the answers from the victims and the survivors for this
question.
65
35,0%
30,0%
25,0%
20,0%
15,0%
10,0%
5,0%
0,0%
29,6%
25,0%
22,7%
25,0%
20,9%
16,5%
11,4%
23,5%
15,9%
9,6%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 21: Lack of trust towards the company
The last question in the survivor syndrome category is about the morale in the workplace.
Decreased morale is one of the consequences of downsizing and it can affect the
organization deeply (Gandolfi & Hansson, 2011; Winston James & Li-Ping Tang, 1996).
Participants were asked about the morale in their current workplace and if it had worsened
in the past few years. Of those who took a stand in this question 25% “strongly disagree”
but 22% both “disagree” and are “neutral” in this reply. The most common answer among
the survivors is “disagree” (29.4%) but 21.1% of the survivors are “neutral” in their replies
and 20.2% “agree” with this statement. The difference between the victims and the
survivors is not significant (p=0.240) (χ2=5,496). Figure 22 here below shows the answers
from the victims and the survivors for this question.
35,0%
29,4%
30,0%
25,0%
23,7%
15,0%
21,1%
20,2%
20,0%
15,8%
15,8%
26,3%
18,4%
16,5%
12,8%
10,0%
5,0%
0,0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 22: I believe that the morale at my workplace is worse today than it was 4 years ago
The final question in this category was also analyzed between men and women. Men tend
to “strongly agree” and “agree” in 34.5% of the cases and women in 27.8% of the cases and
66
men tend to “strongly disagree” and “disagree” in 43.1% of the cases and women in 49.5%
of the cases. Table 28 shows the answers from the genders for this question.
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
Men
13,8%
20,7%
22,4%
22,4%
20,7%
Women
12,8%
15,0%
22,8%
22,8%
26,7%
Table 28: I believe that the morale at my workplace is worse today than it was 4 years ago
The results between the genders did not show any significant difference (p=0.822)
(χ2=1,528).
Here below in table 29 is the difference between victims and survivors for all the questions
in this category is summed up. Like said before did none of these questions show a
significant difference between the groups with α=0.05 or α=0.1.
Victims
Survivors
Victims
Question 23
Survivors
Victims
Question 24
Survivors
Question 22
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
15,6%
8,7%
11,4%
9,6%
23,7%
12,8%
22,2%
23,5%
22,7%
16,5%
15,8%
20,2%
17,8%
26,1%
25,0%
29,6%
15,8%
21,1%
15,6%
15,7%
15,9%
20,9%
18,4%
29,4%
28,9%
26,1%
25,0%
23,5%
26,3%
16,5%
P
value
0.647
0.837
0.240
Table 29: Survivor syndrome, analyzed between victims and survivors.
Organizational commitment and satisfaction
This category of questions is the last part of survivor sickness 1. The literature review
reflects on decreased satisfaction and commitment at the workplace as one of the
consequences of layoffs (Williams et al., 2011). To test these features of the survivor
syndrome the participants were asked eight questions related to this subject. The first three
questions are all focusing on the same thing, that is how the respondent likes his/her job
and they are derived from Grunberg´s and Anderson-Connolly research (Grunberg et al.,
2000). First, table 30 shows the statistical analysis of the eight questions in this category.
67
Q25 - Q32
All in all, I am very satisfied with my job
In general, I don´t like my job
In general, I like working here
Most days, I am excited about my job
I would turn down another job with more pay in
order to stay with this company
I feel like “one of the family” with the company I
work for
I am very proud of my workplace
I have wanted to change jobs in the past few years
N
Mean
St.dev
Variance
321
319
321
321
2,09
3,99
1,93
2,29
0,93
1,14
0,92
1,02
0,86
1,31
0,84
1,03
321
3,48
1,20
1,43
319
318
316
2,47
2,18
2,92
1,15
1,04
1,32
1,32
1,08
1,74
Table 30: Organizational commitment & satisfaction, statistical analyzes of questions 25-32
The second question is in a way the first question but reversed coded. The mean for the first
question is 2.09 which would be “agree” and the mean for question two is 3.99 which
would be “disagree” so they do reflect the mind of the respondents well. The third question
follows the first question pretty well but the mean is a little less than in question one or
1.93. Generally, respondents like their workplace although they seem to be a little less
satisfied with their jobs. These three questions were analyzed in relation to gender and table
31 reflects how the genders answered these questions.
Question 25
Question 26
Question 27
Men
Women
Men
Women
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
28,8%
24,5%
5,4%
3,7%
32,4%
Agree
53,4%
51,4%
2,7%
11,9%
51,4%
Neutral
12,3%
13,2%
13,5%
11,0%
12,2%
Disagree
4,1%
8,6%
45,9%
27,5%
4,1%
Strongly
disagree
1,4%
2,3%
32,4%
45,9%
0,0%
36,8%
42,3%
12,7%
5,9%
2,3%
P
value
0.704
0.008
0.498
Table 31: Job satisfaction analyzed by genders.
When these results are examined it shows that the difference between the genders is
significant with 95% level of confidence (p=0.008) (χ2=13,779) for question 26 which
stated: In general, I don´t like my job. Men “disagree” and “strongly disagree” in 78.3% of
the cases and women in 73.4% of the cases. Although the difference between men and
women does not seem great, women agree and strongly agree in 15.6% of the cases while
68
men do the same in 8.1% of the cases. This could indicate than, women tend to dislike their
jobs more than men also and the reason might be the job itself or some other factors that
contribute to these feelings.
All the questions were also analyzed between victims and survivors and table 32 shows
how the answers are divided. The result imply that survivors are more satisfied in their
current jobs and they also like their workplace more than the victims and when they are
asked to state their mind about In general I don´t like my job (question 26), survivors both
“disagree” and “strongly disagree” more frequently than victims, but the difference is
however not significant. The difference between the victims and the survivors for both
question 25 (All in all, I am very satisfied with my job) and question 27 (Most days, I am
excited about my job) is significant at 95% level of confidence like table 32 shows. This is
quite interesting since research has shown that survivors have shown more discomfort at
the workplace than the victims e.g. in Ásta Snorradóttir’s newly research on bank
employees (Ásta Snorradóttir & Margrét Þorvaldsdóttir, 2011).
Question 25
Question 26
Question 27
Victims
Survivors
Victims
Survivors
Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
23,6%
24,6%
11,1%
3,3%
35,7%
Agree
41,8%
54,9%
9,3%
9,8%
33,9%
Neutral
12,7%
13,9%
11,1%
10,7%
10,7%
Disagree
14,5%
5,7%
31,5%
34,4%
14,3%
Strongly
disagree
7,3%
,8%
37,0%
41,8%
5,4%
32,0%
50,8%
12,3%
4,1%
,8%
P
value
0.034
0.358
0.020
Table 32: Job satisfaction analyzed by victims and survivors
The final question from Grunberg’s research deals with commitment to current workplace.
In this particular question participants were asked if they would turn down a better paid job
to stay with the current employer. The most common answer to this statement is „disagree“
whereas 29.2% of those who took a stand in this question used that reply. When the
answers are analyzed by gender it shows that women tend to „disagree“ (30.7%) and
„strongly disagree“ (24.7%) more frequently than men because men “disagreed” in 26% of
the cases and “strongly disagreed” in 17.8% of the cases. Men, on the other hand, tend to
„strongly agree“ (11%) and „agree“ (15.1%) more frequently than women. Women
“agreed” in 13% of the cases and “strongly agreed” in 6% of the cases. The difference
69
between the genders however is not significant (p=0.418) (χ2=3,911) for this question. This
question was also analyzed between victims and survivors like figure 23 shows.
40%
30,3%
30%
30,3%
32,1%
17,9%
20%
10%
33,9%
7,1%
10,1%
8,9%
16,8%
12,6%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 23: I would turn down another job with more pay in order to stay with this company
The victims tend to „disagree“ and „strongly disagree“ more frequently than the survivors
in this question. Although the difference is not significant with α=0.05, (p=0.120)
(χ2=7,325) the results imply that the survivors are more committed to their employers than
the victims (without taking any other variables into consideration).
There were three questions concerning commitment derived from Arney Einarsdóttir’s and
Ásta Bjarnadóttir’s research. In their research, which focused on the private sector and
public sector in relation to attitudes and job-related behaviors in the Icelandic labor market,
commitment showed more positive change between years than other factors like
organizational support, procedural justice and optimism (Arney Einarsdóttir & Ásta
Bjarnadóttir, 2010). In the current study the same questions were analyzed in relation to
gender and also between victims and survivors. Table 33 shows the difference between the
genders.
Question 28
Question 30
Question 31
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
Men
Women
Men
Women
Men
18,9%
23,2%
18,1%
22,3%
28,4%
45,9%
42,7%
33,3%
38,1%
35,1%
32,4%
17,3%
22,2%
22,3%
24,3%
2,7%
12,7%
23,6%
9,3%
8,1%
0,0%
4,1%
2,8%
7,9%
4,1%
Women
28,3%
41,6%
21,5%
4,1%
4,6%
Table 33: Organizational commitment analyzed between genders
70
P
value
0.004
0.021
0.638
Question 28 states: Most days I am excited about my job and men tend to “strongly agree”
and “agree” more frequently than women, women tend to both “disagree” and “strongly
disagree” more frequently than men. This difference between the genders is significant
(p=0.004) (χ2=15,102) at 95% level of confidence. This means that men in general are more
excited about their jobs than women. Question 30 states I feel like “one of the family” with
the company I work for and it turns out that the most common answer for both genders is
“agree” and almost the same amount of men and women feel “neutral” towards this
question. Men, however, tend to “disagree” more frequently than women and women tend
to “strongly disagree” more frequently than men. This difference in answers between the
genders is significant (p=0.021) (χ2=11,510) with 95% level of confidence. Women tend to
feel more like one of family in their workplace than men maybe because many of them are
mothers and it is generally in the hands of the mother to keep the family together. Question
31 states I am very proud of my workplace and the genders tend to see eye to eye on that
question. The most common answer for both genders is “agree” and in general do both men
and women tend to be proud of their workplace. The difference is not significant (p=0.638)
(χ2=2,535).
These three questions were also analyzed between victims and survivors. Table 34 shows
the difference in answers from victims and survivors.
Question 28 Victims
Survivors
Question 30 Victims
Survivors
Question 31 Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
19,6%
25,4%
16,4%
Agree
35,7%
41,0%
30,9%
Neutral
17,9%
26,2%
27,3%
Disagree
12,5%
7,4%
12,7%
Strongly
disagree
14,3%
0,0%
12,7%
21,0%
25,0%
31,9%
32,1%
25,2%
25,0%
16,8%
7,1%
5,0%
10,7%
27,3%
37,2%
26,4%
5,8%
3,3%
P value
0.000
0.424
0.378
Table 34: Organizational commitment analyzed between victims and survivors
From these results it is clear the survivors are more excited about their jobs than the
victims. The difference is significant (p=0.00) (χ2=20,501) with 95% level of confidence.
The reason could be because the survivors have not been forced to change jobs in the past
four years while the victims, who have the layoff experience, might have had to accept jobs
that they are not satisfied with. The other questions do not show significant difference
71
between victims and survivors but there is hint that survivors feel more like one of family at
their current workplace since 21% of survivors answered question 30 with “strongly agree”
but only 16.4% of victims do the same. The victims “disagree” and “strongly disagree” in
25.4% of the cases whereas 21.8% of survivors do the same. The difference is not
significant (p=0.424) (χ2=3,867). Both the victims and the survivors tend to be equally
proud of their workplace although the survivors tend to “agree” and “strongly agree” more
frequently than the victims.
Question 32 states I have wanted to change jobs in the past few years. The results for this
question were analyzed by gender, victims and survivors and between industries. Figure 24
shows the difference in answers between genders.
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
34,3%
28,2%
17,9%
20,9%
19,0%
22,4%
17,4%
17,4%
13,4%
9,0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Men
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Women
Figure 24: I have wanted to change jobs in the past few years
The figure shows that women tend to “strongly agree” and “agree” more frequently than
men and men tend to be more neutral towards this question. The difference between the
genders is significant (p=0.043) (χ2=9,863) with 95% level of confidence. There can be
many reasons why women have wanted to change jobs more frequently than men in the
past few years and it since women do generally have 17% lower salaries than men
(Verzlunarmannafélag Reykjavíkur, 2011) is possible that they have had to accept lower
paid jobs that do not satisfy them as employees. When the answers are analyzed between
victims and survivors the difference was however not significant (p=0.315) (χ2=4,739).
Table 35 here below shows the answer from the victims and the survivors for this question.
72
Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
26,1%
12,3%
Agree
28,3%
31,6%
Neutral
17,4%
22,8%
Disagree
15,2%
19,3%
Strongly
disagree
13,0%
14,0%
Table 35: I have wanted to change jobs in the past few years
The most common answer from the victims was “agree” (28.3%) and it was also the most
common answer among survivors that agreed in 31.6% of the cases. The victims however
strongly agreed in 26.1% of the cases while the survivors did the same in 12.3% of the
cases.
The companies’ industry sector was also analyzed with this question and those who
answered “strongly agree” most frequently worked in the service and commerce, public
service and those who most frequently “agreed” worked in public transport and a
production company. Those who most frequently “strongly disagreed” worked in
construction and public transport. The difference between the industry sectors is not
significant (p=0.756) (χ2=37,203).
This concludes the results for this factor of survivor sickness 1 and discussion about the
findings will be dealt with in chapter seven.
73
6.3 Sickness 2
Hypothesis 2: Survivors will show signs of guilt towards the laid off victims
Sense of guilt towards layoff victims
The literature review suggests that survivors might experience sense of guilt towards the
layoff victims. This could occur if the survivors belief that the layoffs were unfairly
handled or if they had coworkers or close friends working with them that were laid off
(Gandolfi, 2008). This category asked the survivors and the victims three questions. The
statistical analyzes for these three questions can be viewed in table 36. The table shows the
valid number of answers (N), mean, standard deviation and variance for this category of
questions and also how many survivors answered each question.
Q10 - Q12
I had good friends/coworkers at the
workplace that lost their jobs during
layoffs
I have experienced guilt within me
because my coworker was laid off
but I was not.
I have experienced anger towards the
organization that did lay off people
that worked closely with me.
N
Mean
St.dev
Variance
Survivors
(count)
200
2,58
1,25
1,57
118
199
3,62
1,29
1,67
112
200
3,41
1,36
1,84
112
Table 36: Sense of guilt towards layoff victims, statistical analyzes of questions 10 – 12
It has been put forward in previous research that survivors react more negatively towards
layoffs in the workplace if they felt close to their coworkers who were laid off (Brockner et
al., 1992). To measure prior attachment to layoff victims the participants were asked if they
had coworkers or friends at the workplace that lost their job. 49% either “strongly agreed”
or “agreed” with this question and then the answers were analyzed between genders. Both
men and women have had good friends or coworkers that lost their jobs in layoffs. 52.3%
of men either “strongly agree” or “agree” with this statement compared to 56.7% of
women.
Participants were then asked if they had experienced feelings of guilt towards the laid off
victims and the answers from the survivors and the victims are viewable in figure 25.
74
45%
38,4%
40%
35%
30%
25,0%
25%
20,5%
17,3%
20%
15%
25,0%
23,2%
11,6%
11,5%
10%
21,2%
6,3%
5%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 25: I have experienced guilt within me because my coworker was laid off but I was not
The survivors generally “strongly disagree” and “disagree” with this statement, whereas
61.6% answer that they have not experienced these feelings. When compared to the victims
it shows that they “strongly agree” and “agree” more frequently than the survivors. The
difference between these two groups is not significant (p=0.358) (χ2=4,368) but it indicates
that survivors have not experienced guilt towards those who were let go from the
downsized organization. When this question was analyzed between genders it showed a
significant difference (p=0.092) (χ2=8,000) with 90% level of confidence. Women tend to
“strongly agree” and “agree” much more than men. The table below shows the difference
and there is it clear that men tend to “strongly disagree” much more than women. This
indicates that women in the workplace tend to feel more for the ones who are let go and
tend to feel guiltier than men that they were the ones who survived the layoffs and not the
laid off victims.
Strongly
agree
Men
Women
1,8%
11,1%
Agree
12,5%
13,9%
Neutral
Disagree
16,1%
25,0%
26,8%
20,4%
Strongly
disagree
42,9%
29,6%
Table 37: Perceived guilt because my coworker was laid off but I was not
The question about guilt towards the victims was also cross examined with the questions
whether or not the participants had survived layoffs within the company they work for
and/or within their own department. The results that came from this analyzes did not show
that those who had survived layoffs within their company or their department were
75
experiencing more guilt towards the laid off victims. To be able to cross examine the
question concerning guilt with the question that asked if participants had good friends or
coworkers that lost their jobs in layoffs, all the participants that answered with “strongly
agree” and “agree” were filtered out and cross examined. No significant results came from
that analyzes (p=0.106) (χ2=14,500), which indicates that participants have not experienced
guilt towards the victims of layoffs even though they have had friends or coworkers that
lost their jobs.
The final question asks if the participants have experienced anger towards the organization
that did lay off people that worked closely with them. This question was analyzed between
victims and survivors and there is a considerable difference in answers from these two
groups. The literature review suggests that anger is one of the feelings the survivors
commonly experience but when the numbers are analyzed, the victims do “generally agree”
and “strongly agree” with this statement. The survivors tend to “strongly disagree” and
“disagree” in 58% of the cases. The difference between the two groups is significant at 95%
level of confidence (p=0.043) (χ2=9,866). Figure 26 shows the different answers from the
victims and the survivors.
40%
34,8%
32,2%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
15,2%
11,9%
20,3% 18,8%
23,2%
22,0%
13,6%
8,0%
5%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 26: Anger towards the organization that did lay off people that worked closely with me
Sense of Layoff Justice
Based on the literature review, perceived layoff justice can provoke anger and fear among
survivors but most commonly that happens if the survivors feel that the downsizing
procedures are unfairly handled (Brockner et al., 1985). To deal with this factor,
76
participants were asked 3 questions. The statistical analyzes for these three questions can be
seen in table 38.
Q7 - Q9
During the last major round of layoffs, the
procedure that the company used to select
those who were let go was fair.
During the last major round of layoffs, the
company treated those who were let go very
well
The reasons for the layoffs were clearly
explained to me and other employees
N
Mean
St.dev
Variance
Survivors
(count)
200
2,82
1,33
1,76
125
200
2,76
1,29
1,67
122
200
2,76
1,29
1,67
123
Table 38: Sense of layoff justice, statistical analyzes for questions 7-9
Analyses were made between victims and survivors, since they were the groups that
answered these questions. The first question asks respondents whether they believe that the
company acted fairly in selecting those who were laid off. Of those who took a stand in this
statement over 50% of survivors “strongly agreed” and “agreed” while over 36% of victims
felt the same. The difference between the victims and the survivors regarding this statement
is significant at 95% level of confidence (p=0.005) (χ2=14,686). Figure 27 shows the
difference between victims and survivors.
35%
30,4%
30%
25%
20,8%
20%
15%
26,4%
23,8%
14,3%
12,7%
25,4%
23,8%
12,0%
10,4%
10%
5%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 27: Selection of those who were laid off was fair
The figure above shows that the survivors generally sense that the company/organization
used a fair approach in selecting those who let go. The Victims however did not feel the
same and tended to “strongly disagree” and “disagree” more frequently than the survivors.
77
This indicates that the victims were not satisfied with being laid off and feel that the
company did not execute procedure fairly.
This question was also analyzed between men and women but it did not show any
significant difference (p=0.700) (χ2=2,195). Men however, tended to “strongly agree” more
frequently than women and women tended to strongly disagree more frequently than men.
Table 39 shows the answers from men and women regarding this question.
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
27,9%
28,3%
20,6%
23,3%
17,6%
15,0%
11,8%
17,5%
22,1%
15,8%
Men
Women
Table 39: the procedure that the company used to select those who were let go was fair
In Grunberg’s and Anderson-Connelly research, perceived unfairness was assumed to have
more negative effect on lower level employees but in that research the interaction between
those two factors was quite small and statistically insignificant. To compare these results to
the current study, organizational position was cross-examined with question 7, which
stated: During the last major round of layoffs, the procedure that the company used to
select those who were let go was fair.
45%
43%
41%
40%
35%
30%
33%
29%
25%
18%
20%
11% 11% 11%
6%
20%
17%
15%
10%
29% 29%
27%
25%
18%
13%
11%
6%
5%
5%
0%
Supervisor
Strongly agree
Manager
Agree
Specialist
Neutral
Disagree
General employee
Strongly disagree
Figure 28: Selection of those who were laid off was fair
Figure 28 shows the distribution of answers from the respondents divided by their
organizational position. Supervisors or those that manage people “strongly agree” and
78
“agree” in over 70% of the cases while, for example, the general employees do the same in
33.9% of the cases. The difference is significant at 95% level of confidence (p=0.005)
(χ2=34,587).
The second question asks if the company treated those who were let go well. Both the
survivors and the victims seem to “strongly agree” or “agree” with the statement that the
victims were fairly treated. However, the victims show equal results in “agreeing” and
“strongly disagreeing” with this question. The victims tend to “strongly disagree” more
frequently than the survivors which could indicate that the victims did not feel they were
well treated when they were laid off. Figure 29 shows the answers from victims and
survivors regarding this question: During the last major round of layoffs, the company
treated those who were let go very well.
35%
28%
30%
26% 26%
23%
23%
25%
19% 20%
20%
18%
15%
10%
10%
8%
5%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 29: The victims were well treated by the company during layoffs
The difference between the victims and the survivors is significant at 90% level of
confidence (p=0.065) (χ2=8,852). This question was also cross examined with the
demographic variable gender that showed very similar results. Women “agreed” and
“strongly agreed" in 48.6% of the cases and men in 41% of the cases. That difference was
not significant (p=0.475) (χ2=3,518). When this question was analyzed by organizational
position there was however a significant difference (p=0.005) (χ2=28,260). Figure 30 here
below shows how the answers are divided between the organizational positions for this
question.
79
50%
44%
38%
31%
25%
40%
30%
22% 22%
19%
20%
7%
6%
10%
33%
30%
26%
16%
10%
4%
24%
19%
17%
7%
0%
Supervisor
Manager
Strongly agree
Agree
Specialist
Neutral
Disagree
General employee
Strongly disagree
Figure 30: The victims were well treated by the company during layoffs
Supervisors and managers tend to “strongly agree” most frequently but the managers also
“disagreed” most frequently. The general employees are most frequently “neutral” in their
responses to this question. This indicates that those who rank the highest in the
organizational ladder feel that the victims were well treated when they were laid off and it
is likely that the supervisors/managers were the ones that executed the layoffs. The general
employees are the ones that most frequently “disagree” and “strongly disagree” with this
question and it is likely that this group were the ones that lost their jobs in the group layoffs
after the bank/economic crisis.
The third question used in this category to measure fairness of layoffs asks the respondents
whether the reasons for the layoffs were clearly explained to them.
40%
31,8%
30%
20%
33,3%
25,2%
24,2%
17,1%
15,2%
16,7%
12,1% 13,0%
11,4%
10%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Survivors
Figure 31: The reasons for the layoffs were clearly explained to me and other employees
80
Strongly disagree
From figure 31 it shows that companies seem to have explained the reasons for the layoffs
well to their laid off employees since 56% of victims “strongly agree” or “agree” with this
statement. The survivors show similar results but over 50% of the “survivors strongly
agree” or “agree” with this statement. That difference was not significant (p=0.394)
(χ2=4,092). This question was also analyzed by genders but no significant difference
appeared (p=0.877) (χ2=1,209). Analyzes were also made with this question and
organizational position and like in the other questions there was a significant difference
(p=0.057) (χ2= 17,585) with 90% level of confidence. These results indicate that the
supervisors generally feel that the reasons for the layoffs were well explained more than the
other groups. The general employees tend to “strongly disagree” with this statement. The
reason could be that the supervisors were the ones that announced or executed the layoffs
and therefore they feel that their own work was well performed. Figure 32 shows how the
answers are divided between the organizational positions.
50%
40%
44%
43%
38%
32%
29%
31%
30%
21%
20%
10%
25%
21%
13%
11%
6%
14%16%
14% 15% 15%
9%
4%
0%
Supervisor
Strongly agree
Manager
Agree
Specialist
Neutral
Disagree
General employee
Strongly disagree
Figure 32: The reasons for the layoffs were clearly explained to me and other employees
This concludes analyzes for survivor sickness number 2. Discussion about results and
hypothesis will be dealt with in chapter seven.
81
6.4 Sickness 3
Hypothesis 3: Survivors will have experienced envy towards the laid off victims
Sense of envy towards layoff victims
The idea about envy towards the layoff victims is based on the literature review but no
particular research was used to follow this factor. It has been reasoned that survivors may
experience sense of envy towards the layoff victims especially if they know that the victims
are receiving retirement packages, financial benefits or new jobs with more and better
compensation (Gandolfi, 2008; Kinnie et al., 1998) and to verify if Icelandic employees
have experienced these feeling they were asked three questions concerning this factor that
were especially made for this study. First, table 40 below shows the number of valid
answers (N), mean, standard deviation and the variance for these three questions. The
number of valid answers from survivors is also counted for.
Q13-15
I have had to take on more work
because my coworkers were laid off
and their assignments got transferred
to the remaining employees
In the past 4 years I have experienced
that I just as well would have liked to
be one of the laid off employees
instead of staying with the downsized
company
It has happened (at any point in the
past 4 years) that I have considered
those who were laid off lucky to be
gone
N
Mean
St.dev
Variance
Survivors
(count)
200
2,79
1,37
1,89
121
199
4,01
1,25
1,56
124
200
4,03
1,15
1,33
124
Table 40: Sense of envy towards layoff victims, statistical analyzes of questions 13-15
The first question asks if respondents had to take on more work due to layoffs of coworkers
because it has been put forward that survivors have increased job demands at the
downsized workplace (Dragano et al., 2005). Then mean for this question is 2.79 and the
most common answer was “agree”. Responses from survivors and victims were used to
analyze the survivors for this question. Scarcely 50% of the survivors “strongly agree” or
“agree” with this statement but the victims do the same in 48.1% of the cases. Total number
of responses for this question was 200. The survivor respondents were 121 after those who
did not state their opinion (NA) were taken out, the other came from victims. Figure 33
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shows the different response from victims and survivors, the difference is not significant
(p=0.804) (χ2=1,625).
32,7%
35%
30%
27,3%
25%
20%
22,3%
19,2% 19,0%
15,4%
13,5%
15%
15,7%
19,2%
15,7%
10%
5%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Victims
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Survivors
Figure 33: Increased workload due to layoffs of coworkers
When the answers were analyzed by job tenure (figure 34) it is evident that those who have
worked 4 years or more were those who most frequently “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with
this statement (56%). Those who worked for 1 year or less also “agreed” and “strongly
agreed” in 45% of the cases. The difference within the job tenure is not significant
(p=0.678) (χ2=12,929). Other variables (gender, age) were cross examined with this
question but no determinant results came from that analysis.
40%
35%
28%
30%
23%
19%
20%
10%
10%
13%
28%
26%
21%
21%
17%
17%
16%
14%
11%
31%
29%
26%
25%
21%
14%
11%
22%
12%
0%
<1 year
1-2 years
Strongly agree
Agree
2-3 years
Neutral
Figure 34: Increased workload due to layoffs of coworkers
83
Disagree
3-4 years
Strongly disagree
>4 years
10%
In the second question in this category, the respondents were asked if they had wanted to be
one of laid off victims instead of a survivor. This is stated because it has been reasoned that
at times the survivors experience that they are the unlucky ones and not the victims (Littler,
1998). The mean for this question being 4.01 indicates that respondents tend to “disagree”
more than “agree” with this statement. It turned out that 58.9% of survivors “strongly
disagree” with it and only 8.1% “strongly agree”. This question was also analyzed by
gender and figure 35 shows the different answers from both men and women. The
difference is not significant (p=0.533) (χ2=3,151). This question was also cross examined
with two other variables, age and children. No significant results came from that analyzes.
60%
54,0% 50,0%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
17,5%
7,9% 5,5%
10,0%
3,2%
Strongly agree
Agree
15,5%
17,5% 19,1%
0%
Neutral
Men
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Women
Figure 35: I would have preferred being laid off instead of staying with the downsized company
The results for this question, goes in hand with the third question in this category that asks
respondent if they considered those who were laid off lucky to be gone. 57.3% of the
survivors “strongly disagree” with that statement and the mean for that question was 4.03.
When this question was divided between genders it shows very similar results for both men
and women. The difference was however not significant (p=0.808) (χ2=1,605). Figure 36
shows the answers for this question divided by gender.
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60%
45,2%
50%
50,4%
40%
30%
20%
1,6% 3,5%
10%
9,7% 10,6%
17,7% 15,9%
25,8%
19,5%
0%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Men
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Women
Figure 36: I have considered those who were laid off lucky to be gone
The answers were also examined with education of the respondents but no significant
results appeared but the most frequent answer for all education groups was “strongly
disagree”.
The survivors tend to strongly disagree in all aspects of the questions in this category
although their workload might have increased in some cases. Further discussion about the
survivor envy will be done in chapter seven.
Sense of work overload
The aim of this category was to verify if the survivors had experienced change in workload
or in hours put into the job. Like said before, the literature review suggests that survivors
are commonly faced with heavier workloads due to dismissal of coworkers and the results
for the chapter above reveal that survivors “agree” or “strongly agree” that this is the case
at their workplace. Participants were asked five questions to measure if change in workload
had taken place among survivors. The first three questions were taken from Grunberg’s and
Anderson-Connolly’s (2000) research and the last two questions were formed by the
researcher in cooperation with the instructor. Table 41 here below shows the statistical
analyzes of these five questions.
85
Q33 - Q37
N
Mean
St.dev
Variance
I never seem to have enough time to get everything done
321
2,70
1,21
1,46
I have too much work to do everything well
The amount of work I am asked to do is fair
319
320
2,89
2,67
1,25
1,03
1,56
1,06
I feel that I need to contribute more to my work today to
finish the same amount of work I did before.
322
3,16
1,15
1,31
I feel that I need to put more hours into my work to be
able to finish the same amount of work I did before
319
3,36
1,14
1,29
Table 41: Sense of work-overload, statistical analyzes of questions 33-37
For the first question that stated: I never seem to have enough time to get everything done, of
those who took a stand 50% either “strongly agree” or “agree” but 29.3% “disagree” or
“strongly disagree” with the mean being 2.70. When the question was analyzed by gender,
men tend to “agree” or “strongly agree” in 55.4% of the cases while women do the same in
48.6% of the cases. The difference between the genders for this question is not significant
(p=0.151) (χ2=6,722). The table below shows the answers from both men and women for
this question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral Disagree
12,2%
19,3%
43,2%
29,4%
20,3%
20,6%
20,3%
21,6%
Strongly
disagree
4,1%
9,2%
Table 42: I never seem to have enough time to get everything done
The second question, that stated: I have too much work to do everything well has a little higher
mean or 2.89, of those who took a stand in this question 28.1% replied with “disagree”
which was the most common answer. However, when this question was analyzed by
genders 45.9% of men either “strongly agree” or “agree” but 41.7% of women do the same.
The difference between the genders in this question is not significant (p=0.241) (χ2=5,482).
The table below shows the answers from both men and women for this question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
10,8%
17,6%
Agree
35,1%
24,1%
Neutral Disagree
21,6%
25,7%
18,5%
29,2%
Strongly
disagree
6,8%
10,6%
Table 43: I have too much work to do everything well
The mean for the third question that stated: The amount of work I am asked to do is fair was
2.67 and the most common answer, among those who took a stand in this question, was
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“agree” (44.7%). This question was also analyzed between gender and there was very little
difference in the answers, both men and women tend to “agree” with this statement, women
in 45.2% of the cases and men in 42.5% of the cases and the difference was not significant
(p=0.738) (χ2=1,987). The table below shows the answers from both men and women for
this question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
11,0%
7,4%
42,5%
45,2%
27,4%
23,5%
Strongly
Disagree disagree
13,7%
18,4%
5,5%
5,5%
Table 44: The amount of work I am asked to do is fair
The mean for the last two questions was above three in both cases. The most common
answer for both questions was “neutral” (33.2%). When the forth question that stated: I feel
that I need to contribute more to my work today to finish the same amount of work I did before is
analyzed between gender, it shows that women tend to “strongly disagree” more frequently
than men (15.5% vs. 7%) and men tend to be more “neutral” than women (42.3% vs. 30%).
The difference between the genders is not significant (p=0.227) (χ2=5,649). The table
below shows the answers from both men and women for this question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
7,0%
9,5%
19,7%
19,0%
42,3%
30,0%
23,9%
26,0%
7,0%
15,5%
Table 45: More contribution today to the work than before
The fifth question stated: I feel that I need to put more hours into my work to be able to finish the
same amount of work I did before. In this question men seem to be more “neutral” than
women (38% vs. 31.7%) and women tend to “strongly disagree” more frequently than men
(20.6% vs. 12.7%). The table below shows the answers from both men and women for this
question.
Men
Women
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
5,6%
7,0%
18,3%
13,6%
38,0%
31,7%
25,4%
27,1%
12,7%
20,6%
Table 46: More hours put into work to be able to finish the same amount of work
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The difference between the genders for this question is not significant (p=0.490)
(χ2=3,423). None of the questions in this category revealed a difference between the
genders.
All these questions were also analyzed between victims and survivors to get a better idea
how the survivors experience workload in their workplace. The main results for that
analysis can be found in table 47.
Question
33
Question
34
Question
35
Question
36
Question
37
Victims
Survivors
Victims
Survivors
Victims
Survivors
Victims
Survivors
Victims
Survivors
Strongly
agree
21,4%
16,4%
18,5%
16,4%
9,3%
9,9%
8,7%
11,9%
8,7%
Agree
23,2%
41,0%
16,7%
28,7%
46,3%
43,0%
23,9%
19,5%
17,4%
Neutral
23,2%
15,6%
16,7%
18,0%
25,9%
23,1%
32,6%
36,4%
34,8%
Disagree
23,2%
20,5%
38,9%
28,7%
11,1%
18,2%
28,3%
22,0%
26,1%
Strongly
disagree
8,9%
6,6%
9,3%
8,2%
7,4%
5,8%
6,5%
10,2%
13,0%
9,2%
15,8%
35,0%
25,0%
15,0%
P
value
0.228
0.466
0.817
0.777
0.997
Table 47: Sense of work-overload, analyzed between victims and survivors
Although none of these results show significant difference it is interesting to see that the
survivors seem to “agree” more than the victims in reference to the first question, that they
do not have enough time to get everything they need to do. Together with “strongly agree”
survivors exceed victims with 57.7% ratio falling into those two response options whereas
the victims show 44.6% for the same options. For question 34, the survivors seem to have
much more work to do that the victims. The survivors “agreed” and “strongly agreed” in
45.1% of the cases while the victims did the same in 35.2% of the cases. Other results were
very equally distributed between these two groups.
All the questions for this category were also cross examined with organizational position.
This was done to verify if it matters how high you rank in the organizational structure
versus how much workload you have. There was only one question that showed significant
difference and that was question 33, I never seem to have enough time to get everything
done. Figure 37 shows the difference in answers analyzed by organizational position.
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45%
40%
35%
39%
40%
38%
32%
30%
25%
20%
21%
18%
10%
15%
10%
8%
7%
10%
13%
5%
4%
5%
28%
22%
16%
15%
27%
25%
23%
0%
1 Supervisor
Strongly agree
2 Manager
Agree
3 Specialist
Neutral
Disagree
4 General employee
Strongly disagree
Figure 37: I never seem to have enough time to get everything done
When the figure is looked at it is the supervisors that generally “strongly agree” with this
question and they also show a high score for “agree”. General employees tend to “disagree”
with this question and when compared to the other professions, the general employees are
the ones that “strongly disagree” most frequently. Note that the number of valid answers
from supervisors was only 28 for this question so the result is built on few answers.
Nevertheless, the difference within the organizational position for this question is
significant (p=0.001) (χ2=32,608) with 95% level of confidence.
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7
Discussion & Implications
The aim of chapter 7 is to discuss the findings that were discovered in chapter 6. Firstly,
the findings in terms of the research question and the hypothesis that were presented will
be discussed. Secondly, the theoretical implications for this study will be stated and finally
limitations to this study and future research will be dealt with.
7.1 Findings
The finding of this study will follow the structure that was set up in chapter six. First,
results for each sickness will be addressed and the hypotheses will be dealt with
accordingly. Lastly, answer to the research question will be discussed and then, the
remainder of this chapter will cover implications and limitations to this study along with
discussion about future research.
7.2 Sickness 1
Sickness one dealt with job insecurity for the most part. Other factors were job satisfaction
and organizational commitment along with morale in the workplace and lack of trust to
towards management/organization. Hypothesis one stated: Survivors will have experienced
job insecurity. To support or reject the hypothesis five questions concerning job insecurity
were laid out and the questions were analyzed in correlation with various variables. The
conducted analyzes did not support the hypothesis and therefore it has to be rejected but the
factors that made up this sickness are dealt with here below.
7.2.1
Sense of perceived job insecurity
The findings for perceived job insecurity among survivors are not as decisive as suggested.
When the raw data from only the survivors is looked at it shows that their answers for the
first question (I expect that I will be promoted/ have career opportunities within the next 12
months) are rather spread. Most survivors answer with “neutral” which indicates that the
majority is not certain if they will be promoted/have career opportunities within the next 12
months and there was also almost an equal proportion that either agreed or disagreed with
this question. The survivors also believe that their skills will be useful to the company in
the next 12 months since over 91% of them strongly agree and agree with that question.
When asked about if they thought that the company they work for would need them as an
employee in the next 12 months 95.1% believe that to be the case. Both these questions
indicate that the survivors sense that they will stay with the current employer for the next
90
12 months. Majority (57.4%) of the survivors also believe that the company they work for
will not resort to layoffs in the next 12 months but 24.6% are neutral in their responses
indicating that almost ¼ are unsure if layoffs could occur in the nearest future. When asked
about if they thought that they themselves could be laid off 85.2% of the survivors do not
fear their own security in the workplace. This could mean that although some feel that
layoffs might happen in the next few months the survivors do not feel like they themselves
will be one of the layoff victims. The final question asks the survivors to imagine that they
would be laid off and to value how the assistance the company would give them with
would provide for their needs. Almost 66% of the survivors expect that the management
would provide very well and well for their needs. From the raw data, there is not much that
indicates that the survivors are experiencing job insecurity in their workplace.
Further analyzes did though indicate some difference when the answers from the survivors
were compared to other participants of the study. When all the groups (victims, survivors
and those with no experience with layoffs) were asked to state their opinion on the
following statement: I am confident that the company will need me as an employee in the
next 12 months there was a significant difference between the survivors and those with no
experience with layoffs versus the victims. The victims in this correlation showed more
negative reaction than the two other groups. The difference is not gigantic but none the less
it is visible and there are no clear reasons for that. It could be that the victims have already
been through a personal layoff experience and they might feel vulnerable or feel more
afraid than the other groups to lose their job again. When the participants were asked to
state their mind on the following statement: I believe that it is unlikely that more layoffs
will occur in the organization in the next 12 months the group that had no previous
experience with layoffs were the ones that most frequently “strongly agreed” which
indicates that they do not expect that layoffs will occur in the nearest future. The other
groups divided their answers better between the response options and were more “neutral”
about this statement which indicates that they are not entirely convinced that no further
layoffs might happen in the nearest future. Both victims and survivors have experienced
layoffs in their workplace so they might be more aware of signs that indicate that layoffs
are possible. The groups also showed difference in their answers concerning this statement:
Suppose you were laid off. If so, how well do you think the assistance that management
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actually offered the laid off people would provide for your needs? When the answers were
analyzed between the three groups it showed that those with no experience with layoffs
expect that the management would provide very well and well for their needs if they were
laid off in 82% of the cases. The other groups are more humble or pragmatic in their
answers and do not feel as strongly that the management would provide as well for their
needs. The reason could be that they have the layoff experience and do know how it is to be
laid off or have seen how the management has treated those have been laid off before.
Those with no experience have no idea how they will be treated by the management so
most likely they are guessing how it will be. None of these questions indicate that the
survivors have more negative feeling towards job insecurity than the other groups.
One of the suggested determinant factors towards job insecurity was age. Therefore, age
was cross-examined with all the job insecurity questions. There was only one question that
revealed a significant difference and that was the question concerning participants’
perceived feelings of future promotion and career opportunities in the workplace (I expect
that I will be promoted/ have career opportunities within the next 12 months). Those who
were over 51 tended to show the most negative responses meaning that those who are older
do not expect to have any further career or promotion opportunities. These results are not
surprising and do in general go hand in hand what normally happens in the labor market
when people get older.
When the genders were analyzed in relation to job insecurity there was only one question
that revealed a significant difference and that question stated: I expect that my skills will be
useful to the company in the next 12 months. Women tend to expect their skills on the job to
be useful more frequently than men. Whether or not women feel that their skills are more
useful in the workplace than men is difficult to estimate but these results hint that women
feel that their skills on the job are being well used and they feel important in the workplace.
In Naswall and De Witte’s research (2003) that covered data from Belgium, Italy,
Netherlands and Sweden men revealed a stronger relation between job insecurity and its
negative outcomes than women in all the countries except Belgium but the current study
does not indicate any such relation. Like with other analyzes between the genders it has to
be noted that men are in minority of the respondents so the analyses is built on unequal
answers from the genders.
92
The final analyzes of job insecurity was done by verifying if the participants companies
field of industry yielded significant difference. There was one question that showed
significant difference namely: I feel it is unlikely that the company I work for will resort to
layoffs in the next 12 months. The answers for this questions revealed that those who work
in the banking industry (financial institutions/insurance) and those in information and
technology showed the most negative responses and therefore the least sure that the
company they work for would lay off employees in the next 12 months. Those who were
most convinced that layoffs would not occur in the next 12 months are working in public
transport, education, commerce/service and health care. This could indicate that those who
work in the private sector are more afraid that layoffs might occur in the nearest future than
those working in the public sector. It is also interesting that those who have already
experienced the most layoffs (bank industry, technology industry) are the ones who still
fear the most that future layoffs could occur.
In general do these results not indicate that the survivors are suffering from job insecurity
in their workplace and therefore will hypothesis 1 be rejected. There were, however, other
factors that made up survivor sickness number 1 that is job satisfaction and commitment to
the workplace and other survivor syndrome symptoms that will now be discussed.
7.2.2
Sense of survivor syndrome
The literature review defines many survivor syndromes that survivors do commonly
identify with. In this study only two of them were dealt with namely lack of trust towards
the management/organization after downsizing and decreased employee morale. When the
answers from the survivors are analyzed they do not reveal that the survivors are suffering
from any of the researched survivor syndrome because only one of the researched variables
that made up this category showed a significant difference. Generally, the survivors tend to
strongly disagree and disagree with the questions that were laid out in this category, except
for the question regarding lack of trust towards the company/organization that they work
for because in that case they tended to be neutral. Very few survivors agreed and strongly
agree with the questions in this category that indicates, like previously mentioned, that the
survivors are generally not experiencing a lack of trust towards their company or decreased
morale in their workplace. International research have shown that morale in the workplace
decreases after layoffs have taken place and for example in a Canadian research, that has
93
been previously discussed in the literature review, survivors reported feelings of anger and
anxiety both within themselves and others that resulted in a decreased morale (Amundson
et al., 2004). The study done by Vermeulen and Wiesner (2000) in South-Africa also
revealed a huge drop in employee morale after layoffs. The current study does however not
indicate that the survivors are experiencing that the morale in the workplace has worsened
in the past four years because they tend to disagree most frequently with this question. The
victims however tend to strongly disagree most frequently but they also strongly agree
which indicates mixed feelings among the victims.
7.2.3
Job satisfaction and commitment
The final part of survivor sickness number 1 is job satisfaction and commitment. The
results for this part of the study shows that the participants are in general satisfied with their
job and they also tend to like their workplace. Men tend to like their job a little more than
women and they also tend to like their workplace more than women. The question: All in
all, I am very satisfied with my job was reversed to verify if the answers would mirror the
answers for this question. The reversed question stated: In general, I don´t like my job and
the answers reflected the answers from the previous question pretty well. When the
question concerning job satisfaction was analyzed between victims and survivors it
revealed that the survivors were generally more satisfied with their jobs and they also like
their workplace more than the victims. This is actually in sync with the results from the
previous chapter about job insecurity and the survivor syndrome symptoms because the
survivors did not show any firm conclusions that they suffer from any part of the
researched survivor syndrome. This further supports that the survivors are satisfied in their
current jobs and like their workplace and do not feel threatened by job insecurity.
There was one more question that dealt with the same issue as the first questions but this
question was derived from Arney Einarsdóttir’s and Ásta Bjarnadóttir’s research and stated:
Most days I am excited about my job. Most participants agreed and strongly agreed with
this question. There was a significant difference found between the survivors and the
victims for this question whereas the survivors reported that they are much more excited
about their jobs than the victims. This supports the results from the previous question that
the survivors are more satisfied in their jobs than the victims. It should be noted that the
victims have had to find new jobs or some might still be unemployed that could in some
94
way explain why they are not as excited about their jobs as the survivors or as satisfied as
them with their current position in the labor market. When this question was analyzed by
gender it also revealed a significant difference. Women tend to be less excited about their
jobs than men or at least they disagree and strongly disagree more frequently than men with
this question which supports the conclusion that men tend to like their jobs more than
women.
The participants were also asked if they would turn down another job with more pay to stay
with the current employer, aiming for commitment to current workplace. The most
common answer for this question was disagree which indicates that higher salaries are more
appealing than commitment to current employer for majority of the participants. When the
question was analyzed by gender no significant difference was visible although there
numbers did reveal some difference, because women disagreed and strongly disagreed
more frequently than men (55.3% vs. 43.8%) which could indicate than women would like
change jobs more than men and that they would like a job that pays more than the current
job does. When the question was analyzed between victims and survivors it showed that the
survivors were more committed to their current workplace than the victims. The victims
also disagreed and strongly disagreed with this question more frequently than the survivors
(66.1% vs. 47.1) but the difference was not significant. The result for this question does not
indicate that the survivors are experiencing lack of commitment to the workplace. This
even more supports that survivors are not dealing with any kind of the researched survivor
syndrome symptoms in this study.
There were two other questions in this category that were derived from Arney
Einarsdóttir’s and Ásta Bjarnadóttir’s research and both of them were used to measure job
satisfaction. This question was: I feel like “one of the family” with the company I work for.
Most participants agreed with this question and majority of the survivors either strongly
agreed or agreed with this question but there was not a significant difference found between
the victims and the survivors. However, when this question was analyzed by gender there
was a significant difference visible. The results revealed that women feel more like one of
the family in their workplace than men. This is actually interesting because in the previous
question they have reported that they are not as satisfied in their jobs and do not like their
jobs as much as men. The reason for this is hard to guess but it could be that women get
95
more attached to their coworkers and make friends in the workplace and that makes them
feel like a part of a family despite the fact that they are dissatisfied in their jobs.
Finally, participants were asked if they had wanted to change jobs in the past few years.
This question was added for curiosity purposes and the aim was to find out if participants
had really wanted to change jobs in the past few years but did not. The results from this
question shows that women have wanted to change jobs more than men in the past few
years and the difference was significant. It is hard to find the exact reason why women have
wanted to change jobs more than men in the past few years but the results from the
questions above indicate that women are not as satisfied as men or as excited about their
jobs so it is possible that they have had to accept lower paid jobs that do not satisfy them as
employees.
This chapter of the study has revealed the survivors are not dealing with less job
satisfaction than the victims of downsizing although research like done in e.g. Australia
have suggested that job satisfaction among survivors has dropped considerably after layoffs
(Gettler, 1998).
Furthermore, have these results found that women are less satisfied than men in their jobs,
they are less excited about their jobs and like their jobs less than men. They however feel
more like of one of family in their workplace and they have wanted to change jobs in the
past few years. These results indicate that women have had to put up with jobs they do not
like and do not satisfy them but they have not changed jobs in the past few years and the
reason could be because of the economic situation here in Iceland. These results that show a
significant difference between with men and women need to be carefully looked at since
men are in minority of respondents and that gives biased results between the genders.
7.3 Sickness 2
Sickness two dealt with survivors’ guilt towards the victims of layoffs. Within this sickness
the focus was on perceived guilt among survivors, anger towards the organization that did
lay off employees and fairness of the executed layoffs. Hypothesis two stated: Survivors
will show signs of guilt towards the laid off victims. To support or reject the hypothesis the
participants were asked three questions that were laid out about guilt and the questions
were analyzed in correlation with various variables. The conducted analyzes did not
96
support the hypothesis and therefore it has to be rejected but here below are the factors that
made up this sickness dealt with.
7.3.1
Survivors’ guilt
Survivors’ guilt and fairness of layoffs deal with survivor sickness number 2. The first part
of this category deals with survivors guilt, that is guilt towards the laid off victims. The
participants were asked if they had experienced guilt within themselves because their
coworkers/friends were laid off but they themselves survived the layoffs. That did not turn
out to be the case. The survivors did strongly disagree in 38.4% of the cases which was
their most common answer and the victims did the same in 25% of the cases and it did not
matter if the survivors had coworkers/friends that did lose their jobs. However there was a
visible difference when the question about guilt was analyzed between genders and it
showed that women tended to feel guiltier towards a coworker/friend that was laid off. Men
and women had equal experience in losing a good friend/coworker from the workplace in a
downsizing procedure. Although there is no one concrete reason why women feel guiltier
in this situation it is possible that women tend to be more vulnerable and have more
compassion than men in stress related situations (Macrae, 2010). Women did also reveal in
this study that they feel more like one of the family within their workplace so it could be a
reason that they are experiencing that one of the family is suddenly missing when a friend
or a close coworker is suddenly dismissed. The hypothesis that was put forward stated that
survivors would feel guilty towards the layoff victims but it had to be rejected.
Anger towards the organization after layoffs was dealt with in this category and the results
show that the victims tend to feel more anger towards the organization/company than the
survivors and the difference between the two groups was significant. This indicates that the
victims are still feeling resentment towards the organization that executed the layoffs. The
literature review explains anger as of the survivor syndrome and in Campbell-Jamison
research that was done in the U.K. the survivors experienced anger towards the
organization and felt like the organization had broken the psychological contract
(Campbell-Jamison et al., 2001). The current study does however not reveal that the
survivors have experienced these feelings.
This is not in correlation with the literature review that suggests that the survivors are
commonly experiencing feelings of anger after layoffs especially if they had friends or
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coworkers that were laid off. In the current study this seems to be the other way around, the
victims are obviously feeling angrier towards the organization that laid them off.
7.3.2
Fairness of layoffs
The second part of this category focused on fairness of layoffs. Participants were asked if
the procedure that the company used to select those who were dismissed was fair. The
results revealed that the victims did not agree with this but the survivors did. This is in a
way understandable since the victims were the ones that were dismissed and they feel that
maybe there should have been someone else dismissed. The survivors do, on the other hand
feel that the procedure was fairly handled, probably because they themselves kept their
jobs. There was also a significant difference visible when this question was analyzed by
organizational position. It turned out that supervisors and managers generally “strongly
agree” and “agree” with this question whereas general employees and specialists tend to
“strongly disagree”. This is actually not surprising because there is probably a big part of
the supervisors and managers that had to execute the layoffs and also it is less likely that
these jobs were eliminated. It is more likely that the companies did lay off general
employees and specialists since they are in most companies in majority of workers. When
the question was analyzed between genders it revealed no significant results.
The second question in this category asked if the respondents thought that those who were
laid off were fairly treated by the organization/company. The results showed a significant
difference between victims and survivors for this question and although the victims
“strongly disagree” more frequently than the survivors, the survivors “disagree” more
frequently than the victims. This could mean that the victims feel that they were not treated
well enough when they were laid off but the survivors have a more tendency to feel that the
victims were fairly treated. When the question was analyzed between genders it revealed no
significant results. There was however a significant difference visible when this question
was analyzed by organizational position. In that analyzes the supervisors and the managers
showed the greatest correlation with strongly agree which means that they feel more than
others that the victims were fairly treated maybe, like said before, because they were the
ones to execute the layoffs of the victims and therefore feel that their own procedures were
well executed.
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The final question in this category concerning fairness of layoffs asks the respondents if the
layoffs were clearly explained to them. Analyzes between the genders did not return any
significant results and neither did analyzes between victims and survivors for this question
but majority of both survivors and victims tend to “agree” and the “strongly agree”
meaning that generally, the reasons for the layoffs have been well explained. This question
was also analyzed by organizational position and like the other two previous questions
there was significant difference visible. The supervisors, managers and the specialist tend
to “strongly agree” and “agree” most frequently. The general employees are more “neutral”
in their replies and they are also the group that “strongly disagreed” most frequently. This
implies that those who are lower down the organizational ladder have less information than
the higher positioned employees.
7.4 Sickness 3
Sickness three dealt with survivors envy towards the victims of layoffs. This sickness deals
with perceived jealousy among survivors towards those who are let go and change in
workload among participants. Hypothesis three stated: Survivors will have experienced
envy towards the laid off victims. To support or reject the hypothesis the participants were
asked three questions about perceived envy towards the laid off victims and the questions
were analyzed in correlation with various variables. The conducted analyzes did not
support the hypothesis and therefore it has to be rejected but here below are the factors that
made up this sickness dealt with.
7.4.1
Envy towards layoff victims
The hypothesis about survivors’ envy towards the layoff victims was rejected. Although the
survivors generally agree that they have had to take on more work due to dismissal of
coworkers they don´t seem to envy the victims’ position or feel that they are fortunate to be
gone. This is in contrast to what the literature review suggests. The economic downturn in
Iceland that caused a great unemployment among people in the labor market could be a big
factor. It is not unlikely that the situation in the labor market has made the survivors even
feel for the victims since it is hard to get new jobs in general when the companies are
sitting back. It could be interesting to know whether the results were different if the
economic situation and the unemployment rate were stable.
99
Connected to the survivor envy is the change in workload. It is not uncommon that
survivors need to take on more work in the workplace when layoffs have taken place and it
was suggested that change in workload might actuate survivor envy towards the victims. In
general do the participants feel “neutral” in these questions and no particular results stand
out. The results do not indicate that the survivors have more workload than the victims after
layoffs. The survivors agreed more frequently that they never had enough time to get
everything done but both groups seem to feel that the amount of work they are asked to do
is fair. The only issue in this category that showed some significant difference was the
organization position in relation to the question: I have too much work to do everything
well. Those who rank higher in the organizational ladder tend to report that they have more
work to do and the general employees are the ones that feel the least that this situation is
applicable in their case. These results are not surprising since those who function as
supervisors in the workplace have often many tasks to look into and the pressure can often
be hectic.
7.5 Conclusion
To sum the discussion that took place above it has been revealed that the stated hypothesis
could not be supported. The research question stated: Does corporate downsizing actuate a
negative impact on the survivors of downsizing? And since the hypothesis could not be
supported, the answer to the research question has to be: No, there are no implications that
corporate downsizing actuates a negative impact on survivors. On the contrary, the study
did show that the victims are in general experiencing more negative feelings concerning
layoffs than the survivors and especially concerning fairness of layoffs where the victims
felt that the procedure that was used to select those who were laid off was not fair while the
survivors felt that it was fair. This tells us that the feelings that the victims show could be
considered long-term effects from personal layoffs. The survivors did even feel that the
layoffs were fairly handled more profoundly that the victims and they did not show any
signs of guilt or envy towards the layoff victims.
The victims also tended to show more anger towards their organization than the survivors.
The survivors did not show any significant signs of job insecurity or other negative effect
of downsizing according to this study when compared to the victims. When compared to
international research the results for this study did not show any of the same responses from
100
the survivors. The study did however reveal some difference between men and women
concerning job satisfaction and how the genders feel about their jobs which could be
interesting to follow up. It is however difficult to make any assumptions concerning the
difference between the genders since men were in minority of the respondents but none the
less did the difference in answers from men and women hint that the genders do not see
their position in the labor market with same eyes and this difference is interesting to
explore further.
7.6 Implications
The findings in this study do not confirm previous studies done in other countries or the
hypothesis stated in relation to the literature review. Several scholars have dealt with
similar topics concerning survivors of downsizing but only few of them have focused on
this topic after economic crisis. Most previous research deal with layoffs in normal times
e.g. when the economy is stable and no crisis have occurred. Wang-Bae Kim (2003),
however, deals with the survivor syndrome after an economic crisis in South-Korea and the
results of that study show that survivors are negatively affected by the use of layoffs. The
current study did not find any significant results that can be interpreted into survivor
sickness.
This research can how ever be used as a foundation for future research and in the long run
that would only increase its reliability. Everyone can agree that it is good for
companies/organization to have knowledge about their employees’ feelings towards their
jobs and the workplace. Although this research does not focus on a particular sector or
company the foundation can be useful to build on.
7.7 Limitations and future research
There are some limitations to this study. First to mention is the sample, which was not
collected in researched based method. Having a convenience sample like in this study
means that all the participants are select because their convenient accessibility and
proximity to the researcher. This can cause biases and in this study the women were in
majority of the participants and they tend to work as general employees while men are
relatively more often in a supervisor or manager position. This should be kept in mind
when the results are looked at, both when the genders are analyzed and organizational
position as well because the results are built on replies from more women than men. For
101
future research this could be done in a more systematic way then aiming for more equal
parting in gender and organizational position. This could also be more professionally done
by having foregone companies partake in a study like this to better understand the behavior
and attitudes from all level employees.
Another limitation to this study is the language. Almost all the questions that were asked in
this study came from previously researched studies and before the questionnaire was public
they were all translated to Icelandic, because the study dealt with Icelandic labor market.
Since the questions had to be translated, there is a chance that some questions were not
translated perfectly and therefore they could have been misinterpreted. If that is the case
with some of the questions it could happen that the Icelandic and English version did not
measure exactly the same features.
There are only few factors from the survivor sickness that are researched in this study but
the literature review tackles many aspects of the survivor sickness e.g. less productivity,
absenteeism, less work performance and stress. All these factors can also be research
material for future research but were not dealt with in this study.
The results in the job satisfaction section revealed some interesting results and especially in
relation to women. Although women are in majority of the respondents there was an
interesting difference in the genders that give a hint to future research. According to the
results from the study women are less satisfied then men when it comes to job satisfaction
and they have wanted to change jobs in the past few years. Women also experience
themselves more like one of the “family” in the workplace more frequently than men.
These results indicate that women and men might look at their workplace with different
eyes. While men tend be in jobs that makes them satisfied and feel more content they do
not experience the “family” feeling in their workplace as frequently as women. This subject
could be interesting for future research.
This study is done few years after the steepest economic crisis is Iceland. Four years have
now passed since this misfortune took place and the country has not gained full recovery
although the unemployment rate has fallen since that time (from 8% in yearend 2009 to
5.2% in October 2012). No distinction was made to how much time has passed since the
victims were laid off. This means that some victims might have been laid off in 2008 and
102
others in 2011 and there could be a difference in the answers depending on when the
victims were laid off, indicating biased answers from the victims.
It has to be noted that all the answers from the participants aim at the current economic
situation, which means than in a way we are looking at a paralyzed labor market. The
companies have been sitting back and not been active in hiring new employees, the
unemployment rate is not in its normal state when looking at unemployment history here in
Iceland. This is of course not an ideal situation for the victims of downsizing that
unexpectedly need to find new jobs. Like said before, the survivors did not envy the victims
and when the situation is looked at it is understandable but there is a chance that in a
normal situation that the survivors had answered differently. It could be interesting to retest
this study in few years when and if the economic situation is more stable and the
unemployment rate has fallen even more. In current times the issues about the labor market
and employees have been of great concern for many researchers and hopefully it will stay
like that. There is an opportunity to learn about the past and use to advance in the future.
103
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Appendix: Questionnaire
1. Have you at any time in the past 4 years been employed with a company that
had to resort to layoffs?
□ Yes
□ No
□ I have not been employed at all in the past four years
• If your answer to question 1 was No then you go automatically to
question 16. If you have not been working at all in the past 4 years
you may discontinue this survey.
2. Have you ever in the past 4 years been laid off?
□ Yes, once
□ Yes, twice
□ Yes, three time or more
□ No
• If your answer to question 2 was No you may go straight to question 4
3. If you have been laid off, in what kind of industry did you work at that time?
□ Agriculture, fishery
□ Construction
□ Information and technology, high-tech or software industries
□ Education
□ Health care
□ Public service (Municipalities and public agencies)
□ Other public service
□ Commerce and service
□ Public transport
□ Distribution systems
□ Banking, insurance or other financial institutions
□ Production company (production of films, videos, television-material)
□ Other kind of industry than mentioned above
□ Other, what _________________
4. Have you ever, in the past 4 years, experienced that a group from your
company was laid off but you survived the layoffs?
□ Yes, approximately 1-4% of the workforce was laid off
□ Yes, approximately 5-10% of the workforce was laid off
□ Yes, more than 10% of the workforce was laid off
□ No, there were no layoffs in this time period
5. Have you ever, in the past 4 years, experienced that a group from your
department (2 people or more) was laid off but you survived the layoffs?
□ Yes, 2-4 co-workers were laid off
□ Yes, 5-9 co-workers were laid off
□ Yes, 10 co-workers or more were laid off
□ No, there were no co-workers laid off in my department
6. Have you ever in the past 4 years, received a warn notice that you might get
laid off in the next round of layoffs?
□ Yes
□ No
Next part of this survey (questions 7-15) is about your attitude towards layoffs in
the workplace where 2 people or more have been laid off. If you have experienced
more than 1 incident of layoff, please refer to the layoff that is closest to you in
time. If you do not want to answer or the question is not applicable (NA) in your
case please tick the last box.
7. – 9. Please state your opinion to the subsequent statements.
Strongly
agree
During the last major round of layoffs,
the procedure that the company used to
select those who were let go was fair.
During the last major round of layoffs,
the company treated those who were let
go very well.
The reasons for the layoffs were clearly
explained to me and other employees
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
NA/
Don´t
want to
answer
10. – 12. Please state your opinion to the subsequent statements.
Strongly
agree
Agree
NA/
Don´t
Strongly want to
Neutral Disagree disagree answer
I had good friends/coworkers at the workplace
that lost their jobs during layoffs.
I have experienced guilt within me because
my coworker was laid off but I was not.
I have experienced anger towards the
organization that laid off people that worked
closely with me.
13. -15. Please state your opinion to the subsequent statements.
Strongly
agree
Agree
I have had to take on more work because my
coworkers were laid off and their assignments
got transferred to the remaining employees.
In the past 4 years I have experienced that I
just as well would have liked to be one of the
laid off employees instead of staying with the
downsized company
It has happened (at any point in the past 4
years) that I have considered those who were
laid off lucky to be gone
NA/
Don´t
Strongly want to
Neutral Disagree disagree answer
Next you will be asked questions about your current workplace. If you do not
want to answer or the question is not applicable (NA) in your case please tick
the last box.
16. – 20. Please state your opinion to the subsequent statements.
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral Disagree
Strongly
disagree
I expect that I will be promoted/ have career
opportunities within the next 12 months
I expect that my skills will be useful to the
company in the next 12 months
I am confident that the company will need me
as an employee in the next 12 months
I feel it is unlikely that the company I work
for will resort to layoffs in the next 12 months
I feel it is unlikely that I will be laid off in the
next 12 months
21. Suppose you were laid off. If so, how well do you think the assistance that
management actually offered the laid off people would provide for your needs?
□
□
□
□
□
□
Very much
Much
Neutral
Little
Not at all
NA/ Don´t want to answer
NA/
Don´t
want to
answer
22. – 24. Please state your opinion to the subsequent statements.
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral Disagree
Strongly
disagree
NA/
Don´t
want to
answer
I have experienced increased lack of trust
towards my supervisors recently than I did ca.
4 years ago
I have experienced increased lack of trust
towards the company I work for recently than
I did ca. 4 years ago
I believe that the morale at my workplace is
worse today than it was ca. 4 years ago
25. – 32. Please state your opinion to the subsequent statements.
Strongly
agree
All in all, I am very satisfied with my job
In general, I don´t like my job
In general, I like working here
Most days, I am excited about my job
I would turn down another job with more pay
in order to stay with this company
I feel like “one of the family” with the
company I work for
I am very proud of my workplace
I have wanted to change jobs in the past few
years
Agree
Neutral Disagree
Strongly
disagree
NA/
Don´t
want to
answer
33. – 37. Please state your opinion to the subsequent statements.
Strongly
agree
Agree
Neutral Disagree
Strongly
disagree
I never seem to have enough time to get
everything done
I have too much work to do everything well
The amount of work I am asked to do is fair
I feel that I need to contribute more to my
work today to finish the same amount of work
I did before
I feel that I need to put more hours into my
work to be able to finish the same amount of
work I did before
Now there are only few questions about your background that will be used in process of
this survey.
38. What is your gender?
□ Male
□ Female
39. What year were you born? ___________
40. Do any children under the age of 18 live with you in your home?
□ Yes
□ No
41. What is your highest education?
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
Primary/elementary school
Secondary school
Collage
University degree/undergraduate
University degree/postgraduate
Doctors degree
Other education than mentioned above
NA/
Don´t
want to
answer
42. How long have you worked at your current workplace?
□
□
□
□
□
1 year or less
1-2 years
2-3 years
3-4 years
4 years or longer
43. What is your companies industry?
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
Agriculture, fishery
Construction
Information and technology, high-tech or software industries
Education
Health care
Public service (Municipalities and public agencies)
Other public service
Commerce and service
Public transport
Distribution systems
Banking, insurance or other financial institutions
Production company (production of films, videos, television-material)
Other kind of industry than mentioned above
Unemployed
Student
In a maternity leave
44. What is the nature of your job?
□
□
□
□
□
Supervisor
Department manager
Specialist
Public employee
Other, what? _______________